


push and pull

by WNThitsthelinks



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Avatar: The Last Airbender AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 09:38:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11803380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WNThitsthelinks/pseuds/WNThitsthelinks
Summary: When Kelley was a little girl, she wanted to be the Avatar.She doesn't end up being the Avatar, but she does end up falling in love with her.





	1. water

**Author's Note:**

> avatar au. korrasami is gay but this is gayer

"Someone's here to see you, Kelley."

Kelley drags the towel over her face with one hand, focused on healing an angry bruise on her side with the other. "I don't see people in the locker room," she says, confused. Heather knows that.

"It's, um," HAO scratches the back of her neck. "It's the Avatar?"

Kelley freezes in place and her blood runs cold. She turns to Heather. "I don't know the Avatar," she says. "I'm going home."

She leaves through the back exit, her ribs and chest aching.

//

Kelley cracks open a bottle of Northern Water Tribe sake when she gets home, but it makes her feel warm in a way she doesn't want to feel. She's angry and upset and she takes a really long shower but it doesn't help at all. 

The Avatar is back in Republic City.

She goes to bed with fury flooding through her veins. 

//

Kelley's been up for hours when the knock on the door shakes her out of her morning workout. 

She pulls the sweat off her body and flings it into the sink before swinging the door open. 

Alex looks different. Her hair's darker. She's lost weight, but seems stronger, steadier. 

Her eyes are the same clear blue as they've always been. 

Kelley slams the door shut. 

"Kelley," Alex calls. "Kelley, please."

It _hurts_ to hear her voice again. It feels like the air's been pushed out of Kelley's lungs. She wonders if Alex did that. 

Kelley lets her forehead fall against the back of the door. "How long have you been gone?" she asks through clenched teeth. 

There's silence from the other side of the door. Kelley slams her palms into the wood. 

"Tell me," she says. "I need to hear you say it."

Kelley waits. 

"Three years," Alex says, barely loud enough for Kelley to hear. 

"Three years," Kelley repeats. "Three _fucking_ years." She kicks the door and manages not to scream as two of her toes break. She pulls the water from the bowl in the living room and starts to heal them, taking deep breaths and trying to focus. 

"I'm sorry, Kelley." Alex's voice trembles. "I'm so sorry, please open the door. I'm sorry."

Kelley doesn't move. 

"Let me help you, please. I can help."

Kelley takes a shaky breath. "Can't you do it through the door, _Avatar_?"

Kelley feels the water pull away from her, feels the energy rush through it and into her foot. With two master waterbenders working, the bones fuse back together almost immediately. 

"You've gotten better at that," she says.

"I know," Alex says. 

Kelley scoffs.

"No, that's not—" Alex sighs. "That's not what I meant. Can we talk? Please?"

Almost against her will, Kelley opens the door. 

"Hi," Alex breathes, her eyes flitting around Kelley’s face, dropping to her neck for just a second before looking up again.

"You've got a minute."

Alex looks like she wants to protest, but the coldness in Kelley’s eyes silences her. "I can't really apologize for what I've done," she starts. Kelley nods in agreement. "But I am _so_ sorry, Kelley. I—it's been a really rough couple of years."

Kelley rolls her eyes. 

"Not that I had it worse," Alex rushes to say. "Just, it was hard, and I wasn't as ready as I thought I was, and that's my fault. I'm sorry."

"It _is_ your fault."

Alex swallows. "Yeah." They stare at each other for a moment. 

"Your time is up," Kelley says, managing to tear herself away and going to close the door. 

"One more thing," she rushes to say. "One more thing."

Kelley pauses, her hand on the wood.

"I love you."

Dimly, Kelley is aware of the way her heart starts to beat faster, of how the blood in her body rushes around. 

"I'm in love with you," Alex corrects. "I have been for years, since before—before everything. Since the North Pole. That’s never changed. I’m so in love with you."

"I need you to go," Kelley manages to gasp out. 

"No."

She shuts the door anyway.

"I'm not going anywhere," Alex calls. "Not again."

With the door between them, Kelley finally lets the tears fall down her cheeks. 

"You're going to have to bloodbend me to get me to leave," Alex says. "And even then, I'm just going to come back."

Kelley stumbles towards her room, pulling water up around her so that the sound of her sobs will be muffled.

Of all the ways she thought this week would go—she hadn’t even considered this as a possibility.

//

They had been so young, in the beginning.

It’s easy to forget.

//

Alex is sixteen when the White Lotus shows up on her doorstep and tell her that she’s the Avatar. She laughs in their face.

Alex is a firebender; always has been. She’s never been cold a day in her life, and she’s been a master since she was fifteen years old. Her fire is blue, just like her eyes, and hotter than anyone else’s.

Alex is a firebender, _not_ the Avatar.

She travels to the Western Air Temple anyway. She doesn’t have much of a choice, but she’s a firebender and she’s proud of it. Firebending is better, after all, and the other elements are half as good at best. She’s entirely confident that she could beat any earthbender, or air, and she’s certainly be able to beat a _waterbender_.

She has to create fire, to start the spark, to pull it out of thin air. The other benders just move their element around.

Sixteen year-old Alex is concerned with one thing and one thing only: learning to bend lightning. It’s the only part of her element that she’s struggled with, the only part of her resume that’s incomplete.

It turns out that her resume isn’t even a fourth of the way complete.

Sixteen and a half year-old Alex still thinks that the White Lotus made a mistake. 16 and a half year-old Alex falls down a flight of stairs and pushes down into the air only to have the air push back.

Seventeen year-old Alex trains with airbenders one level away from earning their tattoos. Seventeen and a half year-old Alex passes her airbending masters, against all odds, with the help of her only friend at the temple, Christen. She knows they want to fail her, to make her study more, to make her immerse herself in the culture, but she’s done with airbenders and she’s _certainly_ done with monks.

Seventeen and a half year-old Alex sneaks away in the middle of the night to bend fire, still hiding her status as the Avatar from the other airbending students. Seventeen and a half year-old Alex wishes she was not the Avatar.

Sixteen year old Christen catches Alex with blue flames in her palms and promises to keep her secret.

Seventeen and a half year-old Alex takes a damn vacation. Christen comes too, a master who chose to forego the tattoos. They goes to Republic City, wander around the parks and bustling streets. It’s different from North Chung-Ling, Alex’s hometown, a small island with a spread out population.

Republic City is huge, tightly packed and slowly expanding from the epicenter, the Spirit Portal that extends straight towards the sky.

Alex might be the Avatar, but she doesn’t go to the Spirit Portal. Christen tries to convince her, but it’s no use.

Instead, she buys them tickets to a Pro-bending match.

It’s the Lion Turtles vs. the Rhino Lions, a fierce rivalry Alex has watched on TV dozens of times. The Air Nomads don’t quite believe in television, though, and both teams have changed who some of their benders are and Alex is desperate to see how it plays out.

They’ve got great seats, close to the ring and right in the middle. She’s loosely rooting for the Rhino Lions, but her true allegiance is to the Ember Island Eel Hounds, so the outcome doesn’t matter much for her.

She’s there to see some bending.

Her program helps her fill in the gaps, telling her who’s changed on which time in the two years she’s been gone. Christen knows even less than her, but is probably more excited. She’s lived at the WAT for as long as she can remember, so Pro-bending was something she got to hear about secondhand. The Lion Turtles have almost completely changed over their squad, while the Rhino Lions still have same group, most notably that veteran earthbender who’s built like a Rhino Lion himself. The Turtles, though, they’ve got a waterbender from the North that’s only a year older than Alex, and an earthbender who’s only four years older. Their airbender and firebender are the same two idiots who played for them two years ago, which further cements Alex’s temporary allegiance to the Rhinos.

Maybe it’s just because it’s the first Pro-bending match she’s seen live, but Alex swears it’s the best meetup of the century. The Rhino airbender is knocked out in the first second with a flurry of attacks from the Turtle water and earthbenders, which makes the whole stadium roar.

It seems like Alex is in the minority in supporting the Rhinos.

After that though, the Turtles get pushed back a zone, and then their waterbender gets a yellow fan for hosing, which Alex thinks is legit but the waterbender clearly does not. Backed up in the last zone, the Turtles go down one, then two, and then it’s just the waterbender, facing fire, earth, and her own element.

“This is insane,” Christen yells over the commotion.

“I know,” Alex yells back, the match surpassing even her wildest dreams.

Belatedly, Alex notices that nearly everyone in the stadium is on their feet. Alex rushes to stand, dragging Christen with her, not quite sure what’s happening but not wanting to be left behind. The crowd begins to chant “K.O.” and gets louder as the waterbender fends off three attacks and time starts to wind down.

The crowd’s energy grows as the Rhinos are pushed back a zone, and then another. They keep chanting too, as the Turtle’s waterbender slams the earthbender over the edge. They get louder, actually, even more so as the firebender gets pushed over, nearly screaming once the Rhino’s waterbender is backed up to the edge. There’s a flurry fast and quick bursts at the feet lined up on the edge—Alex thinks back to the hosing call and thinks maybe there’s some sass in the sharpness—and the Rhino waterbender goes over right as time runs out.

The crowd is deafening, and Alex finds herself screaming along with them, jumping up and down with Christen, swept away by the improbability of the Turtles’ comeback. They’re still chanting “K.O.” over and over again, and Alex thinks that maybe they were never rooting for her to go over at all, but instead for her to take out the entire team.

“Lion Turtles win,” the announcer calls over the loudspeaker. In the ring, the waterbender is getting tackled in a group hug by her team, the perfect image of absolute joy. “That’s the third win in a row for the Turtles, and the fourth solo knockout from Kelley of the Northern Water Tribe.”

Alex and Christen scream along with the stadium. No wonder they’d been chanting for a knockout if she’d already had three this season. Alex wishes that someone like _that_ , like Kelley, could be her waterbending teacher.

Alex turns to Christen.

“Uh-oh,” her friend says. “I don’t like that look.”

Alex smiles.

She’s tired of ancient bending masters telling her she needs to respect her elements when she doesn’t even _want_ to be there in the first place. She’s tired of old farts and antique bending techniques. 

So she figures she might as well mix things up a bit.

“Help me sneak around security?” 

Christen groans and shoves some popcorn into her mouth. “You’re _so_ lucky you’re the Avatar.”

It’s surprisingly easy to evade security when you’ve got two airbenders manipulating the guards, so Alex and Christen find the Lions’ locker room pretty easily. Alex is good at doing stupid things, so she opens the door without thinking.

“Whoa,” Kelley of the Northern Water Tribe says. “I thought we told security to stop letting fans up—” she cuts herself off, giving Christen a once over. “Hello there.”

Christen flushes red and the earthbender rolls her eyes. 

“You can’t be back here,” the earthbender says.

“I need a waterbending teacher,” Alex says, looking at Kelley. “I want you to teach me.”

“Who in Vaatu are you?” Kelley asks.

Alex takes a deep breath.

It’s been twenty-four years since the world’s had an Avatar. Avatar Korra had died old, powerful, and so very loved.

Avatar Onku, who was killed by the Red Lotus at five years old.

Alex, who guards her identity like her life depends on it, because it does.

Kelley crosses her arms, her face impassive.

“I’m the Avatar,” she says.

“You’re the _what_?” Kelley says incredulously. “Oh, absolutely not.”

Alex recoils. “Excuse me?”

“What, you think I’m going to fall to your feet just because you claim you’re the Avatar?”

“She is the Avatar,” Christen says. “She’s mastered fire and air, and she needs a waterbending teacher.”

“So?” Kelley asks. The earthbender nudges her and mutters something Alex can’t hear.

“Fine,” Kelley says. “I’ll teach you on one condition.”

“What?” Alex asks.

Kelley smirks at Christen. “I get to take you on a date.”

//

Kelley is kind of an asshole.

Alex can’t stand her.

“This isn’t working,” she huffs, breaking the stance Kelley pushed her into. 

“That’s because you aren’t trying.”

“I _am_ trying,” Alex seethes, feeling her breath get warmer. “It just isn’t _working_.”

Kelley sighs and scratches her nose. “What was that thing you were doing when I came in?”

Alex frowns. “The Dancing Dragon? That’s just a warm-up. Beginner stuff, gets your fingers hot.”

“Show me the first stance in that.”

Alex huffs but drops into it anyway. Kelley moves a bowl of water in front of her and mirrors Alex’s position across from it.

“Okay,” she says. “Now the next one.”

Alex moves into the next position effortlessly, having known the steps since she was six. Kelley follows and then stands.

“Okay,” she says, nodding. “When you drop to the second position, I want you to focus on pushing the water away with your left arm.”

Alex huffs but goes through it again, surprised to see the water in the bowl actually move.

“Look,” she says, eyes wide. “It moved.”

Kelley snorts. “Yeah, and it only took a week.”

Alex snaps a flame at her, blue and hot, but Kelley puts it out with a stream of water without even flinching.

“Back to first position.”

//

“So,” Kelley says, her mouth full of noodles. “You just travel around with Miss Fire Nation?”

Christen laughs. “No,” she says. “We were in the same class at the WAT, passed our masters the same week. We wanted a vacation and neither of us had seen Republic City before, so,” she shrugs. “Here we are.”

Kelley nods. “Same thing I did when I mastered water.”

“How old were you?”

Kelley smirks. “Thirteen.”

Christen rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right. How old were you, really?”

“Thirteen,” she says. “Really, I promise. Swear on Kuruk.”

“So you came to RC at age thirteen?”

Kelley shrugs. “Nah, I was fifteen when I came to RC. My sister came with me, at first. The North has always valued independence.”

“When did you start Pro-bending?”

Kelley smiles. “Fifteen. Youngest ever, so far.”

Christen shakes her head. “You’re insane.”

Kelley shrugs. “Maybe.”

“And you don’t want to go back home?”

Kelley smiles, but it doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “Nah, Pro-bending’s it for me. Nice way to make cash and meet babes.”

Christen chokes on her noodles and Kelley reaches over the table to awkwardly pat her on the back. “You good?”

“Did you honestly just say ‘babes?’” she gasps out.

“There’s no reason to lie about why I started,” Kelley says defensively. “I mean, I love bending, it’s who I am, but I could bend anywhere. Pro-bending is for people who want cash, fame, and _babes_. There’s no other reason to get beat up every week.”

Christen takes a sip of her water. “You know this date is a one-time thing, right? There’s no chance I’d ever, like, _actually_ date you.”

Kelley shrugs. “I figured. We don’t have to _date_ ,” she says smirking. When Christen blushes, she continues, “It was worth it just to see the look on Avatar Stick-up-the-butt’s face. Plus, I’ve never... _dated_ an airbender before.”

Christen laughs, her cheeks still pink. Kelley smiles.

“So, is it true that Air Nomads get, like, super high every day?”

//

Kelley’s four years old the first time she waterbends. Her little brother falls into one of the canals and gets shot right back out again, Kelley’s outstretched hand and panicked face the only clues as to how.

Kelley doesn’t get it, but her parents nearly throw a damn party. Their family hasn’t seen a waterbender in four generations, since before the Hundred Year War.

Kelley’s six years old when she first learns about the Avatar, someone who can master all four of the elements. She sprints home, not caring about the freezing wind cutting across her cheeks or the snow getting caught in her boots. She runs home as fast as she can and tells her parents that she’s the Avatar, and even at six she can tell that their pitying look isn’t a good one.

Maybe she isn’t the Avatar, but she could be. Eight year-old Kelley does a report on Avatar Kuruk and thinks that he might just be the coolest person that ever walked the planet. She’s a lot like him, so maybe she could be the Avatar after all.

Kelley’s ten when her waterbending master compares her to Avatar Kuruk. She’s long given up being the Avatar by then, since she’s going to be _better_ than the Avatar. It can’t be that hard to be better than some stuck up _Fire_ Nation punk, whoever they are.

Kelley masters waterbending at age thirteen and anyone who sees her bend says she’s the best in the last century. Water is her element and she likes it that way. She has a habit of flirting and making out with pretty girls and never talking to them again, but no one’s perfect. Water Tribe girls are the best girls out there, after all.

Niyuk is a waterbender, too, Kelley’s age, but she’s a lot of levels down in waterbending training. She sees Kelley practicing one night on her way home and maybe Kelley sees her too and maybe (just maybe) she flexes her arms a bit more and does some risky bending patterns.

Niyuk asks if she wants to go out sometime. Kelley says yes.

Niyuk’s got bright blue eyes and a killer smile and the way she trails a hand along Kelley’s bicep leaves nothing unknown.

Kelley’s a _sucker_ for a pair of blue eyes.

When Niyuk asks if she wants to come over, Kelley doesn’t hesitate before saying yes. Her sister laughs at her the next morning when she stumbles home with her shirt on backwards, but Kelley wouldn’t change a thing.

She likes Niyuk. She likes her laugh and her sense of humor and the careful way she puts on lip gloss. She likes kissing her and she likes it when her hands wander under Niyuk’s shirt and she likes everything after that, too.

Kelley’s dated other girls, probably way more than anyone her age should, but Niyuk is different. Kelley’s days quickly become training and food and Niyuk slipping into the cracks where free time used to be.

Kelley’s fifteen when she leaves the North for Republic City, a suitcase in one hand and tears pooling in her eyes. Niyuk stays behind.

Two months later, you can find her stats on the Pro-bending website, see how cold she can freeze ice, how fast she can shoot a stream of water.

(The Pro-bending website won’t tell you that Kelley taught herself to bloodbend at age fifteen, that she doesn’t even need the moon to do it, that she can bloodbend anyone at any time she wants.

The website won’t tell you that Kelley’s the most powerful waterbender on the planet, but it’s still the truth. Kelley knows it, too.)

She meets Heather O’Reilly, a crazy good earthbender who escaped from her crazy, uptight family. They get along famously and Kelley gets her onto the Lion Turtles, since she’s miles better than their old, dumbass earthbender.

Kelley loves being a Pro-bender. It’s fast-paced and exciting, dangerous and difficult. The money is great and the hoards of people screaming her name are better.

She’s the best and everybody knows it, _especially_ the girls that flock to her after every game.

She’s nineteen when Alex walks into her locker room.

She has no idea how her life is about to change.

//

“How was your _date_?” Alex asks.

Christen laughs and kicks off her shoes. “It wasn’t really a date, you know.” _More like a hookup_. “She just wanted to mess with you.”

Alex closes her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Oh, come on, Al,” Christen says. “She’s not that bad.” _She’s very good, actually_ , Christen thinks, but she bites her lip and says, “she’s just...” She searches for the right word. “She’s got a specific sense of humor?”

“She’s an asshole,” Alex says. 

Christen plops down next to her on the couch. “How was training?”

“Didn’t _Kelley_ tell you?” Alex grumbles.

“She did,” Christen says, shoving Alex’s shoulder. “But I want to hear how you think it went.”

Alex smiles. Christen has a habit of always knowing the right thing to say.

//

Alex wasn’t exactly a prodigy like Kelley was. She was always powerful, but she lacked control.

When she was seven, her older sister lost her brand new doll and Alex’s fire turned blue.

That’s when her parents started looking into a bending academy. Alex’s fire is hot and dangerous and her control slips so bad she sets her own hair on fire at least once a week. 

Alex is eight when she enters the Komodo Bending Academy for Advanced Students. She’s the youngest one there and she doesn’t really make any friends.

What she does do is master firebending. It takes a while, and it isn’t easy, but she does it. Her fire never gets cooler, but her control sharpens, focuses. It takes years of training and fire-squats and trying harder and harder with each passing day. She lets herself get swallowed in firebending, lets herself fall into it and breathe it and lets the fire dance along her palms and fingers and arms until it’s like it’s all she’s ever known.

When Alex is fifteen, she takes a deep breath and breathes out fire, blue and burning. That’s when she comes home for good, one of the most promising young firebenders around. There are people who are better, but not by much. Alex spends hours every day training and training and training some more, never thinking about how the earth sometimes trembles when she plants her foot, or how the air sometimes feeds her flames a little more than it does anybody else’s.

The White Lotus arrive when she’s sixteen.

//

Alex always shows up a solid hour before Kelley to work on her firebending. Christen joins her, some days, and they work on air.

“You might have passed your masters,” Christen says. “But you’ve still got a shit-ton of work to do.”

Whatever. Alex works on her firebending and sometimes joins Christen for the last fifteen minutes.

Alex is only ten minutes into her usual routine when Kelley says, “You’re good.”

Alex whirls around, since she was almost positive she was alone. “I know,” she says, not happy that her personal fire-time is being interrupted.

Kelley rolls her eyes. “Right. Listen, since the only thing you really seem to be doing in RC is not master waterbending, how ‘bout you join the Lion Turtles?”

Alex bristles at the insult, but she can’t say that she’s never wanted to Pro-bend. “Is that allowed?”

“Avatar Korra Pro-bended. It’s not like anyone knows who you are, anyway.”

“I’d like to keep it that way,” Alex says. “We’re in a time of peace, I have time to get everything in order,” she recites, the phrase memorized from all the times the White Lotus have spit it out at her.

Kelley leans against the doorway and smirks. “Want to have some fun, then?”

Alex looks down and lets a flame walk its way across her palm. She can already hear the angry phone call from the White Lotus. 

“Let’s do it.”

//

Christen ends up kicking the Lion Turtle’s old airbender to the curb, much to Alex’s joy. Alex knew there was no way she’d let herself get left behind with something like this, but it was still fun to watch her send him flying out of the ring in twenty seconds.

“You take my breath away,” Kelley jokes. 

Christen sends her flying out of the ring, too.

Just like that, the Lion Turtles have a new squad. They were good before—it’s hard _not_ to be good when you’ve got players like Kelley and HAO—but now they’re a complete set. It takes a few games for them to find their footing, but then they begin to slowly and steadily climb the table.

HAO and Alex don’t notice when Christen comes up to Kelley after training and says that she can’t do _this_ , not with a teammate, and they don’t notice Kelley shrugging and saying that’s fine with her.

Alex does notice the winks Kelley sends Christen’s way, even after they end everything. It mostly just pisses her off, and when Alex’s pissed off, _everyone_ notices it. It’s fine though, because when Alex is angry she’s driven and focused, and once that happens, there really isn’t anything she can’t do.

Alex wants to throw the game when they play the Ember Island Eel Hounds, but when it ends up as just her and Kelley one zone away from the water, it’s obvious that winning is the only option. There isn’t enough time to talk, so Alex drops to the first position of their modified Dancing Dragon and hopes that Kelley gets the message.

She does.

They work in perfect unison, water and fire.

This time, when the crowd starts to chant, it’s Alex’s name, right after she knocks her firebending idol from the ring.

“We make a good team,” Kelley says, holding out her hand.

Alex smacks her palm against Kelley’s, a little surprised at how cold to the touch it is.

They turn to opposite sides of the crowd and raise their helmets in perfect unison.

//

“I’ve got an idea,” Kelley says.

Alex takes another bite of her sandwich. “What?” she asks, mouth full.

Kelley wrinkles her nose. “First off, gross. Second: I think we need to work on your waterbending at night.”

Alex swallows and takes a sip of water to help clear her throat. “Why?”

“Waterbenders are strongest when the moon’s out,” Heather says. “Like firebenders with the sun.”

Alex shrugs. “Okay. Are we starting tonight?”

Kelley frowns. “We just played a game, like, an hour ago. You want to practice now?”

“Listen,” Alex says, leaning across the table and lowering her voice. “It’s only a matter of time before people figure out I’m You-Know-What, so I’ve got to move as fast as I can. If you’re too tired we can start tomorrow.”

Kelley scoffs. “I’m not too tired. We’ll start tonight.”

Christen and Heather send each other tiny smiles.

//

Kelley has known about Yakone her whole life. Bloodbending is the word that no one says, the Boogeyman, the monster in the closet. The only time it’s mentioned, it follows the word “never,” or comes before “is evil.”

Kelley isn’t quite sure she agrees.

Yakone was evil; his son was evil. Bloodbending someone to get them to do something against their will—that’s evil. It’s violating and makes her skin crawl to think of someone controlling her like that.

Here’s the thing about Kelley: she’s always had control.

Bloodbending can be used for evil, but it isn’t evil itself. Kelley’s always believed that.

She usually trains at night, alone, where she can feel the moon and the tide work with her. She doesn’t focus much on the _thump-thump_ of her heart, or the rush of blood in her veins, or the push and pull inside her very own body. It’s just training, just refining her waterbending down by the docks.

Except, when a man tries to mug her on the way home, his own limbs turn against him. Once he’s knocked out, slumped against the alley he jumped out of, Kelley looks down at her hands and thinks _what the fuck_.

Maybe she doesn’t think bloodbending is all that bad, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s _very illegal_. She looks at the passed out, would-be mugger and _fuck_ , what if he remembers her face? She’s _never_ going back home if the Elders up North catch wind of this.

Kelley puts her hands on her head and tries to take deep breaths. It doesn’t really help to calm her down.

She spends the next week filled with anxiety, sure the police are about to knock on her door any minute, but they never do.

Two weeks later, she goes out to the docks just like she always does and focuses on her heartbeat. She manages to keep the blood from her own fingers until they turn blue, and after that it’s easy.

//

Alex yawns. Kelley takes a deep breath and listens to the gentle smack of the water against the dock, the steady pump of her own heart.

“Ready to start?” she asks.

Alex nods. Kelley points up at the moon, half full. “That’s our teacher.”

Alex laughs a little awkwardly, not sure if Kelley’s joking or not.

“I’m serious,” Kelley says, clearing that question up right away. “You learned from dragons, right? The first firebenders?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, not sure where Kelley’s going. 

“Well, we learned from the moon,” she says. “The moon and the tide. Push and pull.”

“Push and pull,” Alex repeats. “You say that a lot.”

“Every waterbender learns that first. I probably should’ve done _this_ first but,” she shrugs. “I’ve never taught anyone waterbending before. 

“That’s pretty obvious.” Alex gets a splash of water in the back of the head. “Hey,” she protests.

“You deserved it.”

Alex huffs but doesn’t argue.

“Push and pull,” Kelley says again, moving her hands along with the water splashing against the dock. “Try it with me.”

Alex copies Kelley’s stance and puts her hands out.

“Relax a bit,” Kelley says. “You can’t force it, you have to guide it.”

Alex frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It will,” Kelley promises. She puts her hands on Alex’s shoulders and pushes down. “Close your eyes and relax.”

Alex closes her eyes and breathes deep, taking in the salty air.

“Feel it?” Kelley asks.

Alex is about to turn around and snap that _no, she doesn’t fucking feel it_ when the water splashes into the dock again and Alex feels her hands move as it pulls back out.

“Oh,” she breathes.

Behind her, Kelley smiles. “There we go.”

//

Heather O’Reilly learns about Toph Beifong just like every other kid learning earthbending, but she connects just a bit more than the rest.

Her parents want her to find a little more control, not to really develop her bending. Heather hates that. To her seven year-old self, Toph Beifong is a goddess, a warrior, an idol.

It takes her metalbending for her parents to understand that she’s got more talent than the average bender. Officially, they send her off to become part of the famous Republic City police force. They try to push for Zaofu, but Heather isn’t an idiot. She knows RC is the place to be.

Her first night in the city, she goes to the bar down the street from her hotel and gets ridiculously drunk off some drink from the Northern Water Tribe that she’s never heard of. Most of the night (and early morning) is a blur, but what she does remember is accidentally crushing a metal cup and a girl in a blue, Water Tribe tank-top challenging her to an arm wrestling contest.

When she wakes up the next morning on a couch she doesn’t recognize with a pounding headache, she doesn’t remember that she’s the new earthbender for the Lion Turtles Bending Club, but she’ll find out soon enough.

What her parents don’t know won’t kill them.

//

HAO slams Alex in the ribs in practice, her combo just as quick and deadly as it is against opponents. 

“Sorry, Al,” she calls. “Thought you had that one.”

Alex waves her off, but she’s fairly certain that she’s cracked a rib.

“Let me see,” Kelley says, reaching out with a hand that’s submerged in a bubble of water.

Alex recoils, wincing at the pain that flashes against her side.

“Seriously?” Kelley asks. “I’m going to heal you, relax.”

Alex lets her spread the water over her side, jaw clenched.

“What, did your fancy Fire Nation boarding school tell you that healing is a lie so we can get close enough to kill you?”

Alex cracks a smile, the warmth flooding against her side feeling surprisingly good. “Something like that,” she says.

“There,” Kelley pulls the water away. “Good as new. We can work on that next.”

Alex shakes her head. “It’s fine. I don’t need to know how to heal.”

Kelley scoffs, looking shocked, but Alex lets a flame shot up from her hand. “Let’s get back to it.”

Kelley looks like she wants to protest, but Christen shakes her head and mouths “drop it.”

Later, as they change to into less sweaty clothes, Christen slides up to Kelley. “It’s best not to push it,” she says. “Once Alex’s decided something, you’ve gotta change her mind slowly. Can’t put a forrest fire out in a minute, right?”

“You can if you’re the Avatar,” Kelley says.

“Well, she isn’t the Avatar yet,” Christen points out. “She’s got a long way to go.”

Kelley snorts. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Christen knocks their shoulders together. “Give her time.”

“Time’s running out.” Kelley pulls her usual blue, Northern style tank-top on. “She doesn’t have forever.” She grabs her bag and walks out, calling out “See ya,” over her shoulder.

Christen sighs. For a waterbender, Kelley is surprisingly stubborn.

//

Not all airbenders are raised at the Temples, but Christen was. Every since Avatar Korra opened the Spirit Portals, airbenders have popped up all over, sometimes the children of Fire and Earth Nation families. They all flood to the Temples for training, so Christen grows up around all kinds of people.

She isn’t anything special when it comes to airbending, really. She’s good, but there are hundreds of students who are better, who find each position and form so much more easily than she does.

Christen’s strength? She works harder than just about anyone. Other students might have moves come naturally to them, but she works on them over and over and over again until she’s better than they’ll ever be. When they accept their very good, she pushes on until hers is perfect. 

Christen knows all kind of people, from all four nations. Alex, though—Christen never quite met anyone like Alex. She doesn’t talk much, but she rolls her eyes a lot. She doesn’t even show any ability to airbend at all until she’s been there for six months.

It makes more sense when Christen sees her firebending, sees the way the flames dance from one hand to the other, sees the way the fire is just an extension of her arm.

Christen’s met a lot of people at the Western Air Temple, but she’s never met the Avatar.

She thinks, maybe, that Alex looks like she could use a friend.

Christen could use a friend, too.

//

“You’re too focused on attack,” Kelley says. “Waterbending is all about redirection of energy, of morphing a defensive move into an attack.”

“That’s stupid,” Alex mutters, not noticing the way the water pushes away from her when her arms fly out. “You wouldn’t need to defend if you attacked first.”

Kelley lets a groan that kind of evolves into a scream at the end. Alex resists the urge to smile.

“Fine,” Kelley says, dropping into what Alex now recognizes as her ready-to-fight position. “Let’s see how you do attacking first.”

Alex leaps forward, swinging her leg around and pushing a wave of blue fire towards Kelley’s chest. She can’t really see her through the flames, so the next thing she knows is that she’s flat on her back, wind totally knocked out of her. She’s about to sit up when there’s a _very_ pointy ice pick hovering inches from her throat.

“You were saying?”

Alex gulps. 

“Defense is important. Attacking is too, don’t get me wrong, but at the end of the day, your attack means nothing without defense.” The ice melts and gets flung over the side of the dock. Kelley reaches down and offers a hand.

Alex glares at it, then at Kelley.

“Come on, Alex.” Kelley rolls her eyes. “Take my fucking hand.”

Alex grabs it and lets herself get hauled up. “Show me that water-whip one again.”

//

Heather and Kelley are like long lost sisters.

Heather never had any siblings, but Kelley has two, and she thinks she might like Heather better than both of them.

(Not _really_ , but her actual siblings keep teasing her about she’s playing against that earthbender she always had a crush on, the one who plays for the Moose Lions. It’s annoying.)

Either way, HAO and KO are the best of friends. They eat together and live together and work together and when they fight it’s usually settled in a bending match or arm wrestling.

Kelley wins the bending matches and HAO wins the arm wrestling. By the end of either competition they’re laughing and there’s a claim about cheating thrown in and neither of them can really remember why they were angry in the first place. It’s an odd system, but it works for them. Their apartment isn’t that big, since they chose to live close to the stadium instead of somewhere roomier. It’s ground floor, for Heather, and close to the water, for Kelley.

Their kitchen is stocked with booze.

They go on runs together every morning, competitive to the core, neither willing to stop until the other’s given up.

They go on _really_ long runs.

As Pro-bending duos go, their connection in the ring is legendary after only a few weeks. They practice with their firebender and airbender most days, but practice just the two of the every day, no matter what.

They’ve been playing together for a year or so when Heather nearly falls off the ring in practice, losing her balance from laughing so hard at Kelley’s impression of President Gulati. She fully expects to go over and fall into the water twenty feet below, but then the strangest thing happens.

It’s like her insides freeze in place, like all of her veins and arteries pull her back up with a mind of their own until she’s stumbling forwards, back into the ring. In front of her, Kelley stands with one hand outstretched, eyes wide in focus and fear.

“Um,” she says. “That isn’t what you thought it was.”

“You didn’t just bloodbend me?”

“Uh,” Kelley stalls, and then gives up. “No, I did. Sorry?”

Heather shakes her arms out. “Thanks for not letting me fall.”

Kelley’s head pulls back in surprise. “You’re welcome.”

“Next time, make a funnier joke so my pity-laugh isn’t so outrageous.”

Heather laughs as a stream of water hits her right in the face. “Yellow fan, that’s hosing,” she splutters.

“Fuck off, that’s a stupid rule anyway.”

//

“I’m not getting _anywhere_ ,” Alex yells, the water on the dock flying away with a powerful blast of air. “This is pointless.”

“Hey now,” Kelley says, trying to get her hair to lie flat again. “You’ve been making progress.”

“I’ll never be as good as you.”

Kelley shrugs. “Probably, yeah.” When Alex shoots her an annoyed look she says, “Not that that’s a bad thing! No one is, really.”

“I’m the _Avatar_. I should get the hang of this.”

“Oh, come on,” Kelley says, sitting on the edge of the dock, gesturing for Alex to join her. “You aren’t going to learn this in a year, you know.”

“Avatar Aang learned _three_ elements in a year,” Alex grumbles, sitting next to her.

“No he didn’t,” Kelley says. “He spent years after he defeated Ozai training and developing his bending and you know it.”

Alex frowns. “I just want to be done with all of this.”

“Hey,” Kelley says, putting a hand on Alex’s knee. “I can’t imagine what it’s like being the Avatar, okay? It’s gotta be an outrageous amount of pressure.” She squeezes Alex’s knee. “But I’m here to help. I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Christen or HAO.”

Alex smiles. “Thanks, Kell.”

“Of course.” Kelley gives her a sharp pat on the thigh and stands up again. “Let’s go again.”

Alex takes a deep breath and grabs Kelley’s outstretched hand.

//

Kelley’s first solo knockout is in their last regular season game the first year she plays with Heather. It’s against the Makapu Moose Lions, who have a nasty habit of bribing the refs. She’s sitting on a yellow fan, exhausted, and she’s pretty sure her pinky finger is broken.

She jumps to avoid a gust of air and lands steadily on one foot, planted enough to be able to swing her other leg around with a deadly fast, high pressure stream.

Kelley’s waterbending masters had always been so adamant about water being an element of the upper body, but she was always so sure they were wrong.

It’s just her against earth and air, and she’s fought HAO enough to know the best way to mess with an earthbender is to screw up their footing. She avoids the air as much as she can and pushes back the earthbender bit by bit, anxiously looking at the clock.

As a last ditch attempt to save herself from air blasts, Kelley pulls up a water screen, risky in Pro-bending because of the focus it requires. She’s been working on it for months, though, and keeps it up with one hand as she slaps her two opponents around with the other.

The airbender gets knocked out moments after the earthbender, seven seconds left on the clock. Kelley raises her fists in the air and screams.

A few thousands miles away in North Chung-Ling, Alex’s father turns off the TV. 

“Dad,” she whines. “They didn’t even tell me her name yet.”

“She’s just a waterbender, Alex,” he says. “There are some people here to see you, chop chop.”

Alex groans and gets up, completely unaware about the way her life is about to change forever.

//

“Hey, Alex?”

Alex looks up, surprised to find Kelley leaning against her locker. “Hey, Kelley, what’s up?”

“I was thinking we’d skip training tonight. That okay?”

Alex frowns. “Why?”

“Uh,” Kelley says, scratching the back of her neck. “I’ve got a...thing.”

“We can meet later than usual, if you want,” Alex offers.

“No, it’s, um,” Kelley bites her lip. “It’ll probably take all night.”

Alex stops tying her shoes, confused. 

Kelley sighs. “I’ve got a date, alright? If all goes well I’ll be busy until the sun comes up.”

“Oh, ew,” Alex says. “Yeah, have fun with girl number five hundred and six, whatever.”

“Five hundred and seven, but who’s counting?” Kelley asks, smirking. “I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch with Chris and HAO, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex says. “Get out of here.”

“Thanks,” Kelley says, sounding surprisingly sincere.

Alex watches her rush out of the locker room and shrugs.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever understand Kelley.

//

Kelley’s a few minutes late, even though she sprinted the whole way from the gym. She looks around until she sees that familiar ponytail, tucked away in the corner.

Kelley takes a deep breath and walks over.

“Hey.”

Niyuk looks up and smiles, just as dazzling as Kelley remembers. “Kelley,” she says, getting up to give her a hug. “Thanks for making time in your schedule for me, Ms. Fame and Fortune.”

Kelley laughs and squeezes back. “Always,” she says.

“Why are we at a _Southern_ noodle shop?” Niyuk asks once Kelley’s sat down. “I mean, no offense.”

Kelley laughs. “The food’s great, I promise. Almost tastes like home.”

Niyuk’s smile fades. Kelley sighs. “Please don’t worry about it. Let’s just catch up, have fun. Tell me about the lucky gal that gave you that necklace,” Kelley says, pointing at the delicate blue stone resting against Niyuk’s collarbone.

Niyuk blushes. “Um, do you remember Tekka?”

Kelley purses her lips and tries to think, but ends up shrugging.

Niyuk sighs. “Great tits, her dad tried to freeze you to the side of a wall?”

Kelley throws her head back and laughs. “Oh yeah, I _definitely_ remember Tekka.”

Niyuk kicks her under the table. “Well, we went out a few years ago and the rest is history, I guess.”

“You look good,” Kelley says. “Happy. I’m glad.”

“You don’t,” Niyuk says softly.

“What?”

“You don’t look happy,” Niyuk clarifies. “I’m sorry.”

Kelley rolls her eyes. “I’m fine Niyuk. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was—”

“It _wasn’t_ ,” Kelley insists. “I was being stupid. I wanted to impress you, show off a little, you know?” She lets her fingers trail along a groove in the table. “I’m the one who paid the price because it was my fault.”

“I shouldn’t have let you take me there.”

“You didn’t know,” Kelley says. 

“We were fifteen, Kelley. It’s not fair.”

“Maybe not,” she says, “but either way, it’s in the past. I’m doing fine, I love Republic City and Pro-bending. Life’s great. Please, just—let’s just eat, okay?”

Niyuk sighs. “Okay. I don’t know any of these dishes, so you’ll have to tell me what to eat.”

“You’ll be good as long as you steer clear of the sea prune stew. Shit’s nasty.”

//

“How was dinner?”

Kelley glances at Christen and Alex, but says, “Good.”

“Did you tell Niyuk I said hi?”

Kelley sighs. “Yes, I told her you said hi.”

“Did she say hi back?”

“Heather,” Kelley says. “Please shut up.”

“I’m just curious. You went straight to your room when you came back.”

Kelley throws a spring roll at Heather’s head. “Will you shut _up_?”

Christen and Alex look at them suspiciously.

“Anyway,” Kelley says. “We should talk strategy. This week is the Moose Lions, they’ve paid off refs before.”

“Is she staying for the game?”

Kelley closes her eyes. “Yes, Heather, she’s staying in town until Sunday.”

“We should all go out to dinner together, it’ll be fun.”

“No,” Kelley says immediately.

“Why can’t we—” HAO cuts herself off, looking over at Alex and Christen. “Oh, right.”

“Alright, what the fuck?” Alex asks.

“Can one of you explain?” Christen adds.

Kelley glares at HAO, who winces. “It’s a really long story, guys, I’m sorry.”

“It’s also not yours to tell,” Kelley says, her tone icy.

HAO sighs. “Sorry, Kell, really. Let’s talk Moose Lions.”

//

Alex’s training takes a sharp turn in a bad direction.

“Okay, what’s up,” Kelley asks. “You had this move last week.”

Alex huffs. “I dunno, maybe your top secret dinner dates have something to do with it.”

“Alex,” Kelley says. “I missed, like, two nights. Come on.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

Kelley sighs. “Okay, come here,” she says, sitting on the edge of the dock and gesturing for Alex to join her. “Let’s talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Alex says, sitting down anyway. “I want to master waterbending.”

“Well, I think we need to get to know each other better before we continue, okay? And I’m the master so what I say goes.”

Alex clenches her jaw and glares.

“I guess I’ll go first, then,” Kelley says, rolling her eyes. She pulls up a knee and rests her chin on it. “I was banished from the North when I was fifteen.”

Alex’s eyes go wide. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Alex looks over the bay, tries to let that sink in.

“I mastered waterbending pretty young. Everyone always talked about how good I was, how I was the best they’d seen in hundreds of years.” Kelley shakes her head. “They compared me to Avatar Kuruk, actually. My masters were always tough on me, but I thought they were rooting for me as well, you know?”

Alex doesn’t know, so she doesn’t say anything.

Kelley gestures towards her face, where a thin scar peaks out at the corner of her right eyelid. “I kept sassing one of them and wouldn’t shut up and listen, so he nailed me with a water whip. He wouldn’t heal it, said he hoped the scar would ‘teach me a lesson,’” Kelley says, dropping her voice. She shakes her head. “It didn’t work, really. There was this girl, Niyuk. I was crazy about her. I wanted her to think I was cool, or something,” Kelley says, rolling her eyes. “There’s, um, this sacred place up North, with this—” she cuts herself off. “I can tell you this, right? You’re the Avatar, I should be fine.”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Whatever, it’s this spirit pool that’s a really heavily guarded secret. If you pass your secondary waterbending masters you get shown where it is because it’s super significant to the history of waterbending and stuff.” Kelley sighs. “I wanted to impress Niyuk, right? So, I figure what’s better than showing her a place only master waterbenders know about?

“Oh, Kelley,” Alex says.

Kelley chews at her lip. “We got caught. My friend—or at least, I _thought_ she was my friend—saw us sneak in and told the council. I got brought before the Elders and they said that I’d be—” she clears her throat. “I’d be unwelcome until I grew up and learned what waterbending was really about.”

“So you came here.”

Kelley nods. “I came here. I figured if they saw me Pro-bend and saw how good I was, then maybe they’d rethink everything, but—” she shrugs. “It’s been five years and I’ve got three championships, so clearly it hasn’t worked. I haven’t learned my lesson.”

“I haven’t been home since I was sixteen,” Alex whispers.

Kelley looks over. “Did you get banished for making out with a girl in your culture’s most sacred space, too?”

Alex laughs. “No. More like my family doesn’t really want me there.”

“Alex,” Kelley breathes. “That can’t be true.”

“Except it is,” Alex shrugs. “They’re pretty awful, actually. I didn’t realize, growing up, because I spent most of my time at boarding school, but it’s kind of obvious.”

“What do you mean?”

Alex takes a deep breath. “They’re Fire Nation nationalists.”

“Oh,” Kelley says. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah. They wish Ozai had won the war and all that. Fuck the Avatar, Fire Nation supremacy, the whole shebang. There used to be this giant fire fountain of Ozai in our town. It was literally renamed Fire Fountain City during the war. They were leading the march to keep it from being torn down a few years back.”

“What did they do when they found out?”

“What, that I was the Avatar?” Alex sighs. “They wanted me to fight for them, or something. Take their side, campaign on behalf of the slighted, superior Fire Nation. I wouldn’t, and the White Lotus shipped me off to the Western Air Temple when they found out. We don’t talk much.”

They look out across the bay together. 

“Look at us,” Kelley says, knocking their shoulders together. “Disappointments.” 

Alex laughs. “I think yours is worse.”

“Wow, okay,” Kelley says, feigning offense for a second before cracking a smile. “You’re right, though.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Alex says, surprisingly confident.

Kelley grins. “Damn right we will.”

//

Alex loves Republic City.

She loves the pace, the food, the mix of parks and skyscrapers. She loves the apartment she shares with Christen, she loves watching the sunset from the docks with Kelley every night, and she loves getting stupidly drunk with HAO on Saturday nights.

She makes other friends, too, ones that only know her as Alex and not the Avatar. Seger, a nonbender from the South who frequents the noodle joint Kelley loves, quickly becomes one of Alex’s good friends, even though Kelley doesn’t really like her. Still, they hang out as a group, with some of HAO’s friends, Becky and Ali. Alex likes her new life, her under-the-radar-almost-like-I’ve-got-a-life life. 

She likes the kind-of famous status that comes with being a Pro-bender, and Seger really likes it because it makes it a lot easier for her to pick up girls by using Alex as an icebreaker. Alex likes the fame, because it gets her free lunches sometimes, but most people don’t really know her face.

Kelley, on the other hand, is a straight-up celebrity. She can’t go anywhere without people asking for pictures or autographs or asking her out in a totally desperate way. Kelley doesn’t seem to think it’s desperate, though, because she almost always goes home with someone when they go out.

It’s annoying. Alex doesn’t love it. She _especially_ doesn’t love it when Kelley bangs one of her superfans, mostly because it means she’ll end up on a hundred different trashy tabloid websites _again_ and they’ll all have to avoid questions about it when they talk to the press.

“Can you keep it in your pants for, like, one week?” Alex grumbles as they leave the press walk.

“Boring,” Kelley says, just like always. “Sunset’s at 7:45 tonight.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “See you then.”

//

Alex doesn’t know exactly when she realizes that Kelley sleeping with a new girl every week pisses her off, but it’s around the time that Kelley stops sleeping with a new girl every week.

Alex focuses on Pro-bending and mastering waterbending. She can worry about everything else later.

//

They lose in the semi-finals their first year as a team, one zone short of pushing it to sudden death. 

Alex fucking hates losing. She doesn’t think she’s ever met anyone who hates it more, but Kelley proves her wrong. She punches the wall so hard she leaves a dent, pulling water out of nowhere to heal herself.

Alex is too pissed off to ask if she has a secret water stash hidden in their locker room. She changes sluggishly, her limbs feeling heavy, not seeing the way Kelley makes the water evaporate into thin air when she’s done. Alex is the last one finished changing, and the rest of the team stands by the door, each looking dejected and furious in their own little ways. Heather’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Christen’s biting at her thumbnail, eyes looking a bit red but not crying. Kelley stands facing the door, hands on her hips.

“Let’s go,” Alex says. 

They walk out together, immediately bombarded with flashing lights and questions they don’t want to answer. Alex talks to a few of them, numbly mumbling out how they just weren’t good enough and best of luck to the Thornbats. She walks out after that, ignoring the questions getting called after her. All she wants to do is collapse into bed and sleep for a week or two.

She storms her way out the back entrance, taking a deep breath of the cool night air, only realizing she isn’t alone when she hears someone say, “want me to help you forget about tonight?”

Alex turns and sees Kelley pressing some random girl up against the wall. Her teammate nods and the mystery girl leads her away.

Alex rolls her eyes. Typical.

//

Kelley hasn’t slept with someone in the month before they lose in the semis, and she kind of thinks that maybe that’s why they lost. She’s jittery and keeps getting this funny feeling in her stomach and for some reason none of the girls that throw themselves at her seem all that interesting or special, not like they used to.

Then they lose and Kelley would do anything to feel better, really anything, and this girl has blue eyes like you wouldn’t believe and Kelley feels weird accepting until she’s angry at herself for feeling weird.

She lets the girl pull her down the street and tries to ignore the guilt lingering in her chest.

//

“ _Fuck_.”

“Alex, come on, that was close.”

“It wasn’t,” Alex says, turning to face Kelley, who’s lying down and looking up at the stars. “Did you even look?”

“Of course I looked, Alex.”

Alex huffs, feeling her anger and frustration rise and boil over like the water in a teapot. “Maybe the issue isn’t with me, it’s because I have an awful teacher,” she spits out. “Maybe it’s _your_ fault, since you can’t seem to teach me shit!”

Kelley sits up and glares. “Excuse me?”

Alex crosses her arms, half regretting what she said and far too stubborn to take it back.

Kelley clenches her jaw and pushes herself to her feet. “Fine,” she says. “Find a new teacher. I don’t care. I don’t need _you_ or any of this.” She turns and walks away.

Alex waits until she’s well out of earshot before yelling and shooting a blast of fire at the sky.

“ _Fuck_.”

//

Alex doesn’t see Kelley for a week. They were supposed to be working on waterbending pretty seriously now that the season’s over, but instead Alex spends her days hanging out with Christen and Heather and Seger. Kelley’s always busy with some sponsorship thing or training or she has a headache or another random excuse.

Alex strews and broods and mulls over what she said and comes to the conclusion that she kind of knew all along: she needs to apologize.

She isn’t that hard to find, really. It takes Alex an hour. She looks at the Pro-bending Arena training grounds first, and then the docks, and then she checks the gym near Kelley and HAO’s apartment and finds her on the treadmill, music up and legs pumping.

“Kelley,” Alex says.

Kelley doesn’t respond, still running with her eyes focused straight ahead.

“Kelley!”

Kelley turns towards her suddenly and nearly trips, righting herself at the last moment. She slows to a walk and finally to a stop, chest heaving, looking at Alex with a blank face.

“Hi,” Alex says softly.

“Hey.” Kelley takes her earbuds out, chest heaving.

Alex bites her lip. “I’m sorry.”

Kelley stares. “Okay,” she says.

They stand there for a moment, neither one of them speaking until Alex can’t stand it anymore. “Please keep teaching me. I was angry and frustrated at myself and I took it out on you. You’ve been a great teacher. I’m sorry.”

Kelley sighs. “Yeah, okay.” 

Alex smiles, a little timidly. “We’re good?”

“We’re good,” Kelley says. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“It’s a date.”

//

Kelley keeps running after Alex leaves. She runs until her legs and lungs burn. She runs and she thinks.

She thinks about how Christen and Alex and HAO make her feel like she’s kind of found another family, another home. She thinks about how she doesn’t seem to want to sleep with every hot girl she sees anymore. She thinks—or wonders, really—if maybe this is what growing up is.

She thinks about the way her stomach flipped over when Alex said “it’s a date,” and she thinks about the hour she had spent crying after Alex yelled at her on the docks earlier that week. She thinks about Alex and Alex and Alex and her blue eyes and goofy sense of humor and fierce determination until she’s gasping for breath and lightheaded, running and running and running even though she doesn’t know where she’s going.

//

“I think I’m getting this one.”

Kelley laughs. “Okay, sure.”

“Shut up,” Alex mutters, pushing her back a few steps with a blast of air. “I’m close.”

“No, you are,” Kelley admits. “It’s just fun to mess with you.”

Alex focuses on the whirlpool below her, but right as she’s getting the water to pick up speed she yawns and it spins out of control. “Dammit.”

“Hey, maybe we should pick up tomorrow,” Kelley suggests. “It’s pretty late.”

“Yeah, alright,” Alex says. “Maybe once I learn this you can teach me that air to water thing you do sometimes.”

Kelley laughs as they fall into step, shoulders knocking every couple of feet. “I don’t think so,” she says. “Water vapor in the air to water is nearly impossible, very few masters can do it comfortably.”

Alex groans. “Having you as a teacher is the worst. I keep thinking I’ll learn to do the stuff you do one day, except I never will because it’s fucking impossible. You just make it look easy.”

“Aww,” Kelley says, linking her arm through Alex’s. “Thanks, bud. Want me to show you an even better trick?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to show me anyway,” Alex says dryly.

Kelley rolls her eyes as she sticks out one hand, stopping Alex with the other. “Don’t blink,” she says. She curls her fingers into a fist, and suddenly floating above her hand is a delicate flower, made entirely of ice.

“Whoa,” Alex breathes, sticking out a finger to delicately graze one frozen petal. “That’s crazy, Kell.”

“Yeah, you make one of these for a girl and there’s a 99% chance they’ll end up back at your place.”

Alex shoves Kelley over, ignoring her laughter, eyes following the ice flower as it falls to the ground and shatters.

//

Their second year as a complete team, Alex and Christen and Kelley and Heather win the Pro-bending championship. The game isn’t an easy one; the Harbor Town Hog Monkeys are a crazy good squad with arguably the best airbender in the league. They play dirty, too, which is kind of fun but not in a championship match. They start the match out just like any other one, with one of the refs approaching Kelley and explaining that she’d have to pay a fine if she didn’t wear the proper uniform.

Kelley flexes her bare arms. “We do this every week, Lee.”

Lee sighs and lets them pass.

In the end, it’s Alex and Heather alone, tied 1-1, needing to push back the three remaining Hog Monkeys just one zone to snatch the title.

“Thirty seconds left on the clock,” the announcer calls out.

Alex sees a spurt of fire rush towards her and thinks, suddenly, of Kelley on the docks a few months ago, saying something about morphing a defense into an attack. Without even thinking, she catches the flame and swings it back around, bits of blue tinging the edges of it.

“Oh, the Hog Monkeys’s Lee Rei is pushed back by an impressive move from the opposing firebender Alex of North Chung-Ling, and did we see some blue in that fire?”

Alex is half paying attention to the announcer and half helping Heather get their air and waterbenders pushed back as well. In the end, HAO’s left-right combo saves them, slamming the benders together so Alex can force them back.

The light on the floor of the ring turns green as the buzzer sounds. Alex rips of her helmet and lets herself get crushed in one of HAO’s famous platypus bear hugs. The crowd is screaming for them, screaming for _Alex_ , and she’s on top of the world.

Except there’s suddenly a freezing cold, high-pressure stream of water slamming into the back of her head and she tumbles forward. Alex’s head is surrounded by water, and she can’t see anything, and suddenly she can’t even breathe and—

Something flashes white.

That’s where Alex stops remembering.

//

Kelley watches the final seconds of the match nearly biting her own knuckle in half, Christen wrapped around her, holding tight through the anxiety. Alex’s last burst of fire, completely blue, pushes the Hog Monkeys back and Kelley and Christen are grabbing each other and screaming at the top of their lungs.

Kelley is facing the crowd and yelling with them when there’s a collective gasp that rings through the stadium and Christen yanks her around. The Hog Monkeys’s waterbender, an asshole Kelley has never liked, is forcing some kind of water bubble around Alex’s head. 

Kelley’s got a water vortex below her in seconds, moving as fast as she can towards the ring, Heather already shooting earth block after earth block.

Both of them end up being too late.

Kelley’s just within range when the water around Alex’s head flies outwards, her eyes glowing white.

Kelley gulps. The crowd is nearly silent. The idiot waterbender—Spirits, Kelley can’t even remember his name—looks like he might wet his uniform. She suddenly thinks of all the stories she’s ever heard about Avatars mastering the Avatar state, how they don’t even know what they’re doing at first, how it’s all about vanquishing the threat.

Kelley’s always had great control, but she’s always been impulsive, too.

“Hey, Avatar Hot-head,” she calls. “Over here.”

When Alex doesn’t respond, instead taking another step towards the quivering Hog Monkeys player, she sends out a water whip and wraps it around Alex’s waist.

A pair of glowing white eyes turns toward her. _Fuck_ , she thinks. “Perfect,” she says. “Look at my pretty face, Ms. Avatar.”

Alex lets out some kind of inhuman roar and everyone in the stadium starts to scream. The water below them raises up and curls around and _hey_ , Kelley thinks, _that’s a pretty cool move_ , and she turns to HAO and yells “get everyone out of here!”

Thousands of gallons of water rush towards her and Kelley gets to work.

//

_“Alex—”_

_Water, fire, fire fire fire—_

_“Alex, listen to me, please!”_

_A comet, bloodbending, an airbender who can fly—_

_“Alex it’s me.”_

_Tattoos,_

_scars,_

_an engineer?_

_“Look at me, Alex, look at me. Breathe. Breathe with me. There we go, in and out—”_

_Fire, water water water a woman with no face_

_“Alex it’s okay, you’re safe. I’m here. I’m here. It’s Kelley. You’re safe.”_

_Kelley?_

_“Alex.”_

_Kelley_

Alex sits upright, gasping for breath.

“There you are, Avatar Hot-head.”

Alex’s takes a deep breath, then another, then another. “What’s—” she clears her throat. “What’s going on?”

“Here.”

Alex looks over. Kelley’s holding out a cup of water. Alex takes it and downs it in one giant gulp.

“Where are we?”

Kelley takes the cup back. “The White Lotus arrived and took us to a top secret base, or something. It’s, like, a mile south of the City.”

Alex looks around. “Kelley, what happened?” Kelley’s arms are covered in bandages.

Kelley smiles but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “You happened.”

Alex blinks. “What?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Um,” Alex mumbles, rubbing her temples.

Kelley reaches behind her and helps fluff up the pillows so Alex can sit comfortably. “Take your time,” she says.

“We were playing the Hog Monkeys,” Alex begins. “Heather did her combo, I pushed them back, and then…” Alex frowns. “I don’t remember.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Kelley says, reaching out with one bandaged hand to grab onto Alex’s. “The waterbender on the Hog Monkeys attacked you. He’s been arrested, so don’t worry about that.” Kelley clears her throat. “You went into the Avatar State.”

Alex gulps. “I’ve never done that before.”

Kelley smiles. “I figured.”

“Is everyone okay?”

Kelley nods. “I distracted you while everyone evacuated.”

Alex looks at Kelley’s arms. “I did that, huh?”

Kelley nods again. “Your fire turns white, you know.”

Alex lets her head fall back. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah, if it wasn’t so fucking scorching and extremely dangerous it’d be pretty cool.” Kelley laughs. “It did match your eyes, though.”

Alex doesn’t laugh. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Don’t worry about little ol’ me,” Kelley says. “Another two healing sessions or so and I’ll be good as new.” She looks at the expression on Alex’s face. “Hey, none of that. This wasn’t your fault.”

“It was,” Alex mutters.

“It _wasn’t_ ,” Kelley insists. “Plus, I got some awesome new waterbending ideas from your past lives.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, okay? I want to be there if you’re ever in that much danger, or that upset. I can help.”

Alex sighs. “Everyone knows now, I guess.”

“Yep,” Kelley says, popping the p. “The White Lotus wants you to stay here and train.”

“Ew.” Alex wrinkles her nose.

“I know,” Kelley says. “I figure we’ll find some way to have fun, though.”

Alex looks at her. “What?”

Kelley smirks. “You didn’t think we’d leave you here with a bunch of old people, did you?”

“Christen and Heather—” Alex breathes.

“—are staying as well,” Kelley continues. “The White Lotus aren’t super happy about it, but my waterbending impressed them, or something like that.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “You’re so full of it.”

Kelley shrugs. “You would be too, if you were this good.”

//

Kelley’s arms heal without scars and they continue practicing their waterbending at night, using the pool on the edge of the compound. 

One of the White Lotus waterbenders had wanted to take over Alex’s training, but after a quick sparring match they let Kelley continue teaching without too many complaints.

Heather starts with some basic earthbending, too, just simple stuff, and Alex gets the hang of it ten times as fast as she does waterbending. Within two weeks she’s throwing giant hunks of earth around but can barely hold up three of the eight arms in Kelley’s favorite octopus move.

“Just stick with it, Alex,” Kelley says. “Canyons aren’t made in a day.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Alex asks, focusing on keeping her bubble of water in midair.

“Water erodes canyons, right? But it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “That’s the most hippie-dippie bullshit thing I’ve ever heard.” Kelley squirts some water in her ear. “Hey,” Alex complains, letting her water drop.

Kelley laughs and dodges the pitiful flick of water that gets sent her way. “Nice try, Avatar Hot-head.”

“Oh, you’re gonna get it now,” Alex threatens, bringing up a block of earth to block Kelley’s path.

“That’s cheating,” Kelley yells as Alex manages to grab her around the waist. “You’re using more than one element.”

“I’m the Avatar,” Alex grunts, blasting Kelley’s face with air. 

“Why’s your waterbending suck so much, then?”

Alex lifts Kelley up and throws her into the pool.

Kelley comes up fast, slamming Alex in the face with a cold stream of water. 

“Truce, truce,” Alex gasps out. 

Kelley laughs and rests her arms on the edge of the pool. “You want to try making ice again?”

Alex groans, trying to dry her hair with airbending without making it look too puffy. “No, thank you.”

“Too bad,” Kelley says, pulling herself out of the water, arms flexing.

Huh. Kelley’s got nice arms.

“Ice, let’s go,” Kelley says, snapping Alex back to reality.

Alex sighs, drops into her stance, and begins.

//

“Maybe you’re just a shitty teacher, Kell.”

Kelley flicks Heather on the nose. “I’m not and you know it.”

HAO laughs. “I’m just saying, she’s picking up earth pretty fast. Maybe you should let Master Wandu give it a shot.”

Kelley glares. “Just shut up and eat your beans.”

“Where is Ms. Avatar this evening?” Christen asks. “I’ve been meaning to talk to her about meditation.”

Kelley and Heather share a look before breaking into giggles. 

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Chris, it’s just—” Kelley breaks into a laugh again. “Can you imagine _Alex_ meditating? Like, honestly?”

HAO snorts into her cup of water. Kelley stops the spray from hitting her food.

“Whether or not she _wants_ to, she _has_ to if she ever wants to tap into the spiritual side of being the Avatar,” Christen says.

“She needs to tap into the waterbending part of being the Avatar first,” Kelley mutters. HAO snickers again.

Christen rolls her eyes. “I don’t know why I bother.”

Kelley grins at her, giant, crooked ice-teeth filling up her mouth. “You love uth,” she lips.

Christen cracks a smile. Kelley and Heather cheer and do the handshake they made up five years ago, that somehow has managed to survive despite its ridiculousness.

On the other side of the compound, Alex glares at Master Linhua from across his desk.

“I think it would be prudent,” he says in the same dull, monotonous tone as always, “to spend some time in the Spirit World.”

“I’ll get to that when I master water and earthbending,” Alex says. “Can I go eat now?”

On cue, her stomach rumbles. Master Linhua sighs.

“You will need to take this seriously one day, Avatar Alex.”

Alex bristles. “I _do_ take it seriously. Why else would I be up every single night, trying over and over again to master something I’m no good at?” She shakes her head. “I’ll be in the mess hall if you need me, _Master_.”

By the time she plops down next to Christen, there’s steam coming out of her nose.

“Whoa,” Kelley says. “Who pissed you off?”

“Master fucking Linhua,” Alex grumbles, shoveling her food into her mouth.

Kelley smiles. “Want to spar later?”

“Please.”

//

“Okay, step one: focus.”

“Focused,” Alex says, shivering

“Amazing job, Pupil Alex,” Kelley says. “Step two: feel the cold.”

“I’m feeling it,” Alex says.

“You sure?” Kelley asks, smirking. “I can add some more ice to that bath of yours.”

“I’m fucking sure, Master Asshole,” Alex grits out through clenched teeth. She lets the back of her mouth heat up and feels the flames lick against her cheeks.

“Hey now, none of that,” Kelley says. “Part of the reason you can’t make ice is because you go all fire-breath every time you get slightly chilly. Accept the cold.”

Alex groans. “How much longer?”

“Until you make ice,” Kelley says. “Or until your lips turn blue.”

Alex clenches her fists, her body shaking. “Spirits,” she mutters.

Kelley kneels by the side of the tub. “Okay, look at that piece of ice,” she says, pointing. “Just try and make it bigger.”

Alex nods in quick little jerks. 

“Take that cold, that freezing feeling that’s right in your core right now, take it and push it _all_ onto that little piece of ice.”

Alex takes a deep breath, sure as hell feeling the cold down to her core. She squeezes her eyes shut.

“ _Alex_ ,” Kelley yells. “Alex you fucking—open your eyes, dumbass!”

Alex opens them, the previously tiny piece of ice now bigger than her fist. She jumps up, ignoring the numbness in her legs. “I did it!” she yells.

“You did it!”

Alex jumps out of the tub and lets the flames fly from her mouth, warming her up all over. She turns and picks Kelley up in a huge hug, momentarily forgetting that she’s soaking wet and just in a sports bra and spandex shorts. Kelley’s laugh rings clear and high against the side of her face. Alex lets her drop back down to the ground.

Kelley doesn’t step back. “Good job, Pupil Hot-head,” she says, grinning.

“Thank you, Master Asshole,” Alex replies.

“Any time,” Kelley breathes, suddenly serious, her breath warm against the still cool skin of Alex’s jaw.

Alex’s heart beats faster. Kelley feels it happen right as she glances at Alex’s mouth.

Alex presses their foreheads together. Neither of them move until Kelley raises one hand up to press against Alex’s chest, right over her rapidly thumping heart. “Push and pull,” she mutters.

Alex kisses her before she can say anything else.

//

Kelley’s second season Pro-bending, her first with Heather, is when her fame starts to climb. There are fans waiting outside the locker room after every game, reporters asking her for interviews, people stopping her on the street for photos and autographs and anything else they can think of.

Kelley’s sixteen. She’s probably the best waterbender in the world. She lives with her teammate, a thousand miles from her home.

She _loves_ it.

She’s at a bar, mostly just planning to get smashed with HAO, but a _very_ pretty girl with _very_ pretty hair sidles up to her and gets right in her personal bubble, and, well—

This is why she got into Pro-bending, after all.

Heather looks surprised when Kelley gestures towards the girl and then the exit, but she just laughs and raises her glass in blessing.

Kelley feels like she should ask her name or something, but she thinks maybe the girl already told her and she forgot, so instead she lets herself get pushed against the wall outside and does that thing with her tongue all the girls up North liked.

“Want to come to my place?” The girl husks into her ear.

Kelley feels warm all over. She nods and lets herself get pulled down the street.

Afterwards, Kelley stares at a ceiling she’s never seen before and all she can think about is how no one will be calling to ask where she is tonight. She doesn’t want to stay, but how does she—

Well, the girl’s asleep, so that helps. Kelley slips out of the bed and gets dressed as quietly as possible, scrolling through the contacts on her phone before she’s even completely out the door. It’s 11:30, but the North Pole is an hour behind, so she calls her mom.

“Hey,” she says when her mom picks up. “Sorry I haven’t called this week.”

Kelley stays on the phone her whole walk back to her apartment, feeling two blinks away from crying the entire time.

She’s sixteen.

//

“Alex, we should stop.” Kelley’s breath is hot against Alex’s ear.

They’re pressed together on Kelley’s futon. Alex sits back so that her weight’s resting on Kelley’s hips and watches that blue tank top move up and down with each heaving breath. It doesn’t really help calm her down, because now Alex has a better view of her, lips swollen and hair wild, looking totally and thoroughly wrecked.

“I, um,” Kelley says, moving so that she’s propped up on her elbows. “I don’t want to rush into anything, you know?”

“Right, yeah,” Alex says, nodding. She wipes her mouth with her hand. “That’s a good idea.”

Kelley flops back and let her hands fall to Alex’s thighs. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” she says. “Believe me. I just—I want to do this right.”

Alex can feel herself blush. “Okay.” She runs her thumb over the knuckles of Kelley’s hands. “See you tomorrow?”

Kelley nods, still looking ridiculously attractive and insanely kissable. Alex can’t resist leaning down and smacking one more kiss against her lips. She tries to pull back, but Kelley’s hand has found it’s way to the nape of her neck. She holds her in place and deepens the kiss.

“I thought we had to stop,” Alex mumbles against her mouth.

Kelley bites down on Alex’s lip and pulls back, slowly. “We do,” she whispers. “I just had to do that first.”

Alex pulls away before she’s tempted again. Kelley looks up at her and sighs.

“You really need to go, Al.”

“Right.”

//

“Where are you two going?”

Alex glances back at Heather. “Waterbending practice.”

“The sun doesn’t go down for another hour,” she says, frowning.

“Well, she’s gotta learn to waterbend during the day sometime.” Kelley shrugs. “Figured might as well be today.”

Alex nods. Heather shoots them a suspicious look. “Okay,” she says. “See you tomorrow, I guess.”

“See you,” Kelley calls out, already walking away, Alex jogging to catch up.

“Waterbending practice,” Christen says, rolling her eyes. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

//

Alex’s mouth is always _really_ warm. All of Alex is usually really warm, actually, and Kelley is not.

“Why are your hands always _fucking_ freezing,” Alex gasps, breaking their kiss. 

Kelley winces. “Sorry,” she says, moving her hands from under Alex’s shirt. She rubs her palms together as Alex presses open, wet kisses down the column of her throat. “Better?” she asks, letting her hands graze up Alex’s arms.

Alex hums. “Kinda,” she says. “You better get those little fingers under my shirt again, missy.”

Kelley laughs, pressing a kiss to Alex’s jaw, right at the spot that makes her chest do that funny jumpy thing. “Yes ma’am,” she whispers.

The gate to the courtyard thuds open and Kelley jumps back.

“Well, well, well,” HAO says. “What’s going on in _here_? A little late-night rendezvous?”

“She was, um,” Alex says, panting. She glances at Kelley who just looks panicked. “She was teaching me to...bend sweat?”

Kelley shoots her a look that can only mean _are you fucking serious_? Heather laughs uproariously.

“Well,” Heather says. “Master Wandu wants to see you bright and early, Kelley. Goodnight,” she croons, closing the gate on her way out.

Kelley breaks out into laughter. “Helping me bend _sweat_ ,” she says. “You’re an idiot.”

“I didn’t hear _you_ saying anything,” Alex says, turning away.

“Aw, baby,” Kelley says, “Don’t pout.”

Alex crosses her arms. “ _Don’t_ call me baby.”

“Fine,” Kelley agrees, wrapping her arms around Alex’s waist. “I won’t call you baby, honeybun.”

Alex glares and Kelley laughs. “Hey, you know this pool is heated,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows. “Bet my hands won’t be too cold if we get in.” 

“If you think I’m skinny dipping with you at a White Lotus compound filled with old people, then you’re seriously stupid.”

Kelley sighs, pressing a kiss to Alex’s cheek. “It was worth a shot.”

//

“Are you sure the door’s locked?”

“Yes,” Kelley says for the third time. “I locked it when we came in.”

Alex blushes. “I was a little distracted.”

“That was the goal,” Kelley says, smirking.

Alex shifts, pulling Kelley closer. “I don’t want Master Wandu to come in at six in the morning trying to discuss ancient waterbending katas only to find us naked under the covers.”

Kelley snorts, wiggling her head around until she’s found a comfortable spot on Alex’s shoulder. “Believe me, I don’t either. We aren’t even meeting tomorrow, so don’t worry.” She flings an arm around Alex’s waist. “You’re always so warm.”

“I wonder why,” Alex says, sarcasm dripping from each syllable. 

Kelley laughs, her breath ghosting along Alex’s jaw. “It’s because you’re _hot_.”

Alex rolls her eyes, a smirk creeping onto her face. “Is that why you’re always so cold?”

Kelley gasps and smacks her hand onto Alex’s stomach. “You asshole,” she says, starting to laugh anyway. 

Alex grabs onto Kelley’s hand and laces their fingers together. “You’re hot,” she says, shifting so she can smack a kiss to Kelley’s cheek. “So hot.” She kisses Kelley’s nose. “The hottest.” She hovers with her mouth centimeters away from Kelley’s, until it’s Kelley who surges forward and presses their lips together.

If Kelley melts into her, well, it kind of makes sense. They are both pretty hot.

//

Kelley wakes up with Alex’s chest pressed against her back, little puffs of air tickling her neck. Alex’s arm is heavy around her waist, their fingers still locked together.

Kelley can tell it’s later than she usually gets up, but she doesn’t have practice with Master Wandu this morning, so there’s no point in getting up. She’s warm and ridiculously comfortable and every once and awhile Alex will make this little sound in her ear, almost like humming, and her arm will tighten around Kelley’s waist just the tiniest bit before relaxing again.

Kelley never wants to move again.

//

Alex thinks that Kelley might just have the best smelling hair on the planet.

She keeps her breaths deep and even, and with every inhale her head goes all fuzzy. Kelley’s hand is still loosely grabbing onto hers, keeping it in place over Kelley’s stomach. Alex can’t resist nuzzling her nose just a little closer, or the little hum she lets out. She’s the most comfortable she’s ever been. Kelley’s skin is so soft and their legs are intertwined and cozy and Alex feels like she’s had the best night’s sleep of her life.

Alex never wants to move again.

//

By the time the summer solstice rolls around the next week, Alex is itching to get off the compound. It’s only been seven months or so, but it feels like years. The White Lotus want her to stay, of course, but Alex truly doesn’t care. She’s bored and stir-crazy and her family is demanding to see her. Alex doesn’t really want to go, but her mom says something to Master Linhua on the phone that makes his face go all white, and just like that she’s booked on a flight for the Fire Nation. She is homesick in some ways, she thinks, even if it is more for the food than the people, but mostly she doesn’t want to go at all.

It doesn’t help that Kelley’s spending the solstice in Republic City.

“I’m gonna miss you,” Alex says. 

“I’ll miss you, too,” Kelley whispers, snuggling back into Alex’s arms, both of the crammed together one of the loungers by the pool. “Stars are nice tonight.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, looking up.

“They’re better up North,” Kelley says. “Spirits, the northern lights, too, those are impossible to describe.” Kelley traces her finger along Alex’s forearm. “I think you’d like the North Pole.”

 _I like you_ , Alex wants to say. Instead, she presses a kiss to the side of Kelley’s head and looks up at the sky and says, “You’ll show me one day.”

//

It’s been a few years since Alex has been back home, but it all looks the same. The center of town still has the giant memorial, the fire fountain of Ozai long removed. Her parents frown at her clothes the way she knows they will and her sisters look just as perfect as they always have.

It’s not much, but it’s home. The air smells different than it does in Republic City, warmer and heavier, too, like the farther you are from the Spirit Portal the more clogged up it becomes.

Her parents want her to come to some sort of council meeting, but Alex has always hated their stupid small town politics and straight-up manipulative behavior, so she skips out on the meeting, claiming exhaustion from a whole day of travel, and instead goes to sit by the water.

Everyone knows she’s the Avatar now, which is more than a little weird. The whole trip home, people did double takes and stared and tried to take subtle pictures that weren’t subtle at all. It’s a bump in fame from her Pro-bending semi-celebrity status and she isn’t sure how she feels about it yet. Her parents had told her all about how they’d bumped up the security around the house, so there’s that at least.

Kelley’s spending time with family. Alex looks at her phone for at least two minutes before deciding not to call. Kelley doesn’t get to see her family at all and Alex isn’t going to be selfish and take up that time. She can ask her all about it next week.

She does feel like an idiot for not talking to Kelley while they were together, because it feels like she’s the only one who could make sense of any of this. She has annoying moments of wisdom, sometimes.

Alex sighs and watches the waves slap against the shore and soaks up the sun, lets the heat flood into her bones.

It’s nice to be home, but she misses Republic City.

She wonders if Kelley is telling her family about her, about them. She wonders if she and Kelley are a thing at all, or just friends who sleep together. She wonders if it all means more to her than it does to Kelley, who used to have a different girl every week. She wonders if she’s with Kelley because she’s Kelley’s only option.

Alex sighs and stares out over the water.

//

Kelley gets tackled in a four person hug the moment she opens her door. Her parents and siblings lift her off the ground together, all talking at once. Kelley tries to understand pieces of it, but all she gets is something about the Avatar and her younger brother wondering if their Pro-bending championship was disallowed due to the fiasco at the finale.

They calm down a bit over dinner. Kelley sits between her siblings and laughs and tries to fill them in on everything that slips between the cracks when you’ve only got letters and phone calls every few weeks. She does _not_ mention that she and Alex are a little more than friends, mostly because she isn’t quite sure _what_ they are.

Despite that, as they all laugh and stay at the table long after they’re done eating, Kelley kind of feels like she’s home again.

Her own bed feels like _heaven_. Kelley didn’t even realize how much she missed it, having sort of gotten used to the White Lotus compound futons, but the moment she flops down, face first, she knows that she’s falling asleep without a shower.

The last thing she remembers is her mom coming in and turning off the lights.

//

Alex has only been home for a day when the White Lotus show up.

“Are you serious?” she asks when she opens the door. “I’m _fine_.”

Master Wandu shifts his weight from one foot to the other, an unreadable expression on his face. “We know,” he says. “We’re here because of something else.”

“What?” Alex demands, leaning against the doorway and not inviting them inside.

“Your friend,” he says. “Kelley.”

Alex stands up straight again, suddenly a lot more invested in what he has to say.

“She’s disappeared.”

. .


	2. fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there is no war in ba sing se

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kinda violent! all the fun stuff they can't have in a kids show.

Kelley comes to with a killer headache, the air around her cool and dry. It takes a few minutes for her to orient herself, and when she does all she can see is a huge screen in front of her. She tries to move her head from side to side but there’s something in the way.

She can feel the panic begin to work its way through her, so she takes a deep breath and tries to feel the water around her.

All she comes up with is the _thump-thump_ of her own heart and the blood in her own veins and arteries.

Kelley lets herself panic.

//

Alex doesn’t remember much from the trip back to the White Lotus compound outside of Republic City. She fades in and out of consciousness, startling awake with each new nightmare, the crick in her neck getting worse and worse.

Heather and Christen had stayed in the City for the solstice, too, so they’re both waiting for her with red rimmed eyes and bitten fingernails. When they sandwich her in a two person hug, Alex finally lets herself cry.

//

Kelley wakes up confused.

She’s in the same spot, stuck, facing the blank screen. Did they make her watch something? She doesn’t remember. It feels like a long time since she’s been in her own head like she is now. She doesn’t remember eating but she isn’t hungry.

There’s a pressure in her head and her eyes start to slip closed. She tries to fight it, tries to stay awake, but it doesn’t work.

All she can hear is the rush of her own blood.

//

“You have to know _something_ ,” Alex says.

“I’m sorry,” Master Linhua says, shaking his head. “Her sister went to wake her up in the morning and she was gone.”

“Gone? Just—gone?”

“There was no sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle…” He rubs his eyes. “Nothing.”

Alex nods numbly, Christen holding one of her hands, HAO’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. Alex thinks they need the contact just as much as she does. “Thanks,” she mumbles.

Master Linhua sighs. “I’ll be in my office if you have any more questions.”

“Who would kidnap Kelley?” Christen asks once he’s closed the door to Alex’s room.

“ _Why_ would someone kidnap Kelley?” Heather counters.

“She’s friends with the Avatar,” Alex says, putting into words what she’s known since the White Lotus showed up at her door three days ago. 

Christen and Heather fall quiet for a moment. “Why not us, then?” Christen asks.

“I don’t know,” Alex says.

“She’s the best waterbender in the world,” Heather says. “It’s not like she’s some helpless turtle duck.”

Alex lets her head fall into her hands. “I don’t know,” she repeats, her throat aching. “I don’t know.”

Christen stands and starts pacing in angry strides. “So, what, we just wait?” Alex doesn’t think she’s ever seen her so angry. “We sit around and do nothing?”

“No way,” HAO says. “We’re going to find her.”

“How?” Christen’s close to yelling now. “We don’t have any clues or hints. We don’t even know who took her.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Alex says softly. She looks up. “Want to go on a trip?”

//

Kelley wakes up slowly, just conscious enough to not open her eyes. She’s careful to let her heart rate stay slow, to keep her breathing deep and even.

She waits and listens.

As far as she can feel, there’s no water. It’s too cold for her to sweat and the air is so dry that her throat hurts.

She gulps. She is completely, thoroughly, wholly, and absolutely fucked. Her brain feels fuzzy and unfocused, like there’s a lot of noise even though it’s silent. She keeps thinking that she’s forgetting something—why is she here? She can’t remember, what’s—

Wait a second. Kelley swallows again.

Spit. Perfect.

//

They walk from one bus stop to another, the weather way colder than Alex is used to.

She’s wearing a parka, and so are Christen and Heather, but the wind still cuts down to her bones.

“Step two: feel the cold,” she mumbles. Alex feels it alright, her fingers numb where she’s clutching one of her bags.

She used to think that her anger was like her fire, hot and explosive and destructive.

She thinks now that it might be more like ice, cold and hard and unyielding.

The thing about fire and ice is that they both can burn you.

//

Kelley doesn’t know how long she’s been here.

She keeps trying to let the saliva pool in her mouth, but she passes out again before anything can happen. Or at least she _thinks_ she’s passing out, she isn’t entirely sure.

This time, though, she feels a little better. Her head is less foggy, her limbs feel less like jello, even though she still can’t move them. She feels strong, strong in the way that only a full moon can make her feel.

When was the last full moon? Three days before the solstice? That sounds right, but she isn’t sure.

She can’t have been here for a full month.

_Alex_ , she thinks. _Where are you?_

//

“I hope you know what we’re doing,” Christen says.

Heather’s asleep across the aisle from them. The rest of the passengers on the bus are conked out, too, but Alex stays awake, hat pulled down to cover as much of her face as possible.

“We’re searching,” she says.

Christen sighs and turns to look out the window.

//

The next time Kelley wakes up, she’s sure it’s been a long time. Her temples ache. She opens her eyes and catches the faintest glimpse of bright blue eyes and flames on the screen in front of her.

Her whole body tenses and she loses consciousness again.

//

Alex, Christen, and HAO go off the map, following any rumor they can get their hands on. Alex spends any dead time they have practicing fire, air, and earthbending until her muscles feel like wet noodles. They pick up a rumor about a Red Lotus cell to the east of Omashu and travel there, hopping on the backs of trains and hitchhiking and sometimes just walking.

They find the Red Lotus hideout a month and a half after Kelley disappears. It’s stupidly easy to take down, with HAO and Christen and especially Alex, who’s at her most furious. She doesn’t break into the Avatar State, but her fire is blue and scorching, her air and earth almost as deadly.

Kelley is nowhere to be found. There’s three members of the White Lotus looking like they’re on the brink of starvation, but that’s it.

HAO kicks a wall and earth flies. Christen puts her head in her hands. Alex seethes, hands coiled tight into fists, steam hissing out of the cracks between her fingers.

They leave with the three White Lotus members. There are no other survivors. 

//

_Kill the Avatar._

//

Kelley thinks she might have woken up, but she can’t remember.

//

_Kill the_

//

She can’t

//

_Avatar_

//

remember.

//

Someone’s shaking her awake.

“Alex.”

Alex groans and rolls over.

“Alex, it’s Kelley.”

She shoots upright, trying to focus on HAO’s face. “What’s going on?”

“We need to get to the North Pole.”

//

The White Lotus have a boat and five master waterbenders waiting.

“Can anyone give me details?” Alex asks as they run onto the deck. The second they’re all on board they push off from the dock, the waterbenders moving frantically.

“We’re not sure,” Master Wandu says. “Someone started attacking the North Pole. They seem relatively sure it’s Kelley.”

Alex reels. “Who’s they?”

“The Elders of the North. From what I understand, they’re her former waterbending masters.”

Alex has a million more questions she’d like to ask, but she goes with “how long until we get there?”

//

They can hear it before they see it.

It’s hard to see anything, really, because the mist is too thick, but they hear yelling and the sound of cannons and gigantic crashes and splashes well before they can see through the white haze that surrounds them.

Alex’s fingers curl around the handrail along the front of the boat. The mist clears.

There’s a figure, high above the walls of the North, suspended in the air by a water vortex. They’re hurling gigantic chunks of ice, almost big enough to be icebergs, and it looks like the entire Northern army is trying to keep them at bay.

Alex can tell in five seconds that they aren’t succeeding. It takes less than that for her to know it’s Kelley, because there isn’t anyone else who can waterbend like that, but it doesn’t make any _sense_. There’s nowhere that Kelley loves more than the North Pole, nowhere that’s closer to her heart, to her very soul.

“Kelley,” she whispers. “What happened to you?”

Christen grabs onto her shoulder. “Alex, look,” she says, pointing. A small boat, small enough to weave around the churning waves and chunks of ice, makes its way towards them.

When the boat gets close enough, they can make out a lone figure, soaked to the bone. “I’m Master Anyu,” he says, jumping onto the White Lotus’s boat. “It’s good to meet you, Avatar Alex.”

Alex glares. She recognizes the name. “Christen, HAO,” she calls. “Let’s go.”

Heather rips a metal bar out of the side of the boat. “Sorry,” she says. “Gotta go.”

They climb onto Master Anyu’s boat and speed towards their friend.

Christen and Alex knock her from the sky with a synchronized blast of air. When Kelley rises out of the water, they’re finally close enough to see her face.

There’s a bruise on her jaw, blotchy and yellow, but that’s not what they focus on. Her eyes are half closed and her face is entirely slack, like she’s asleep, but her arms are still flinging water and ice at them.

HAO’s using her piece of metal mostly for defense. Alex flings fireball after fireball, but it’s hard to fight someone when you’re also trying not to hurt them.

Christen blows Kelley back a few dozen feet. “What’s wrong with her?”

Alex dives to the side to avoid a shard of ice. She doesn’t have an answer.

They manage to push Kelley back towards the city, which could be good or bad. The Northern Army lets their boat pass once Kelley disappears behind the gigantic wall of ice, and judging by how the yelling inside only gets louder, she hasn’t stopped her attack.

Almost directly in front of where they leave the boat is a huge courtyard, stretching right through the middle of the city. That’s where Alex, Christen, and HAO find her, effortlessly going through line after line of Northern armed forces.

“Kelley,” Alex calls out before she can think of a better plan. “Kelley, snap out of it.”

Kelley—or not Kelley, it’s hard to tell, hard to recognize the figure across the square from her—turns towards Alex and shoots a handful of ice spears right for her. They come in fast, but Alex has a wall of blue-hot fire up before they can even get close.

“Kell, come on,” she says, working her way closer.

Kelley’s entirely focused on her now, not even sparing a glance at the Northern army, flicking aside their attacks like they’re nothing.

“Kelley,” Alex yells. “It’s me, Kell. It’s Alex.” She manages to use waterbending to push aside the wave Kelley sends her way and responds with two quick punches of blue fire. She thinks she sees Christen and Heather trying to get as many people as far away as they can out of the corner of her eye, but it’s hard to focus on anything but dodging Kelley’s attacks.

“Baby, please,” Alex begs. “Please snap out of it.”

Kelley freezes, only moving to wave off the attacks still coming from the soldiers surrounding her. Alex reaches a hand out and opens her mouth, but she never gets the words out.

Her arm suddenly has a mind of its own, slamming back down by her side without Alex ever telling it to. She’s being forced to her knees and it’s like her blood is crawling under her skin and—is Kelley bloodbending her?

Everything goes white.

//

A series of events:

The Avatar, standing before a city, eyes glowing and hair flying in the wind, completely in control of all four elements, ten thousand years of knowledge at her fingertips.

A master waterbender, older than she was the last time she was here but still so young, collapsing into the snow and shaking her head, pressing her hands into her eyes, the white blinding her, finally remembering.

A hooded figure emerging from the crowd.

The crackle of electricity.

//

Kelley feels like she’s been slammed back into her own body after months of watching from above, like a sick and twisted nightmare. She presses the palms of her hands into her eyes and rubs.

_What the fuck is happening?_

She blinks, surrounded by white. She looks up and her breath catches in her throat. 

She’s at the North Pole. The air smells different, cleaner. She feels a tear slip down her cheek as she looks around, trying to take it all in. 

That’s when she sees her. Alex, in the Avatar State. Kelley isn’t sure what exactly snapped her out of it, but that must’ve helped. What had Kelley said to her, all those months ago? 

_“I want to be there if you’re ever in that much danger, or that upset. I can help.”_

Kelley can help.

She’s the only one who sees the crackle of lightning twist somewhere in the crowd of people staring up at their Avatar in awe.

It’s suddenly so clear, what she has to do. Alex is _Kelley’s_ Avatar.

In the next second, a few things happen.

A bolt of lightning gets fired right at Alex’s heart.

Kelley thinks about lightning bending, of how firebenders learned about the flow of energy from waterbenders, about how redirection of lightning has everything to do with control and nothing to do with fire.

Kelley jumps in front of Alex and reaches one hand out towards the incoming lightning, ready to do whatever she has to.

//

As the white fades from Alex’s eyes, all she sees is Kelley at her feet, limp on the ground, hands charred and fingertips smoking.

She drops to her knees and everything goes white again.

//

Heather watches from the crowd, completely powerless.

There is no earth, no dirt, no rocks for her to fling around. There’s just her, a useless earthbender, watching her best friend do the most stupid, selfless, idiotic, and brave thing she’s ever done.

Kelley’s hand is outstretched towards the lightning, and when it hits her fingertips it’s like her whole body convulses, suspended in midair for a moment before the lightning that’s all pent up inside of her bursts out of her other hand, arching towards the sky.

Kelley hits the ground and doesn’t move.

Heather takes a step forward, ready to fight with her bare hands, to do whatever it takes, but the Alex is back in full Avatar mode and, well—Heather almost feels sorry for the guy.

Not almost, actually. She doesn’t feel sorry for him at all.

Instead of worrying about whoever just tried to kill the Avatar, she pushes through the crowd and gets to Kelley. Stupid, proud, loud, aggressive Kelley, who feels so much and hates showing it. Heather knows her better than anyone.

But as she’s crumpled on the floor, hands and arms scorched, limp and lifeless—not lifeless, never lifeless, she can’t be, Heather won’t _let_ her be—Heather almost doesn’t recognize her.

She reaches for her neck to take her pulse and pulls back sharply the moment her hand touches Kelley’s skin, a shock stinging all the way up her arm. She tries again, same shock.

Heather smells something, something burning, something charred. Her heart skips a beat when she realizes it’s Kelley.

She holds her hand over Kelley’s nose, tries to feel if she’s breathing, but her hands are so cold they’re numb and she can’t feel anything at all.

“Help,” she finally calls out. “Please, someone, my friend—”

Christen slams into her side, the momentum from blasting herself over making it hard to stop. “She’s—is she—what’s—”

“Is she breathing?” Heather asks, desperately. “Can you tell?”

Christen’s face contorts into a sob.

“No,” Heather says. “No, no, this can’t—you’re _wrong,_ she isn’t—” She grabs Kelley’s shoulders and this time she doesn’t pull away when the shock travels up her arms. She shakes her, tears springing to her eyes at the way Kelley’s head lolls back.

Heather cradles her best friend in her arms and sobs.

//

Christen is farther away, but she sees it all just fine.

She sees Kelley jump in front of Alex, sees her slam to the ground. She sees Alex take off, she sees HAO rush forward, and that’s when she manages to get herself to move again.

As she watches Heather shake and hold Kelley close, Christen thinks about the Kelley that had asked her out on a date, so full of confidence, the Kelley that had kept flirting with her even when they were done just because she could tell it pissed Alex off. She thinks about the Kelley that had pushed her down into her mattress and made it all about Christen, all her bravado and ego stripped away, just for a moment.

She thinks about the Kelley who watches Alex when she practices firebending, the way she smiles when she thinks no one can see, thinks about the way she’d knock someone from the ring when they’d foul one of her teammates.

Christen sobs and bends the air in and out of Kelley’s lungs for her, because Christen has spent months searching for her, and she isn’t going to watch her die, not when she has the power to do something about it.

//

It takes Alex a few moments to realize where she is.

She’s warm and standing over some kind of pool, two koi fish circling around each other and making her dizzy. Kelley is floating, her hair loose in the water, eyes closed. She looks like she’s asleep. Alex’s hands are outstretched, and the water is glowing, and _oh, is this what healing feels like_ —

She remembers everything like a tsunami and stumbles backward only to find a pair of arms waiting to catch her.

“Hey, Al,” Heather says, her voice weak. “Welcome back.”

Alex looks around, takes in the four elders in the formal fur robes of the North surrounding the pool, hands outstretched just like Alex’s were moments ago.

Why had she never learned to heal as regular Alex? She can’t remember. Whatever the reason, it was a stupid one, because now she isn’t so sure she can continue without the Avatar State.

“The person who—are they—”

“They’re dead,” Christen answers, wrapping an arm around Alex. “Red Lotus, they think, but no one’s sure.”

Alex nods numbly, held together by HAO on one side and Christen on the other. It seems like they wait forever, the water around Kelley glowing, lighting up her face.

“It was a trap,” she mumbles.

Christen’s arms squeeze just a bit tighter.

“You know if you kill someone in the Avatar state the cycle of rebirth stops,” Alex says numbly.

Alex can feel the air stutter in Heather’s throat. “She just—”

“She just saved everyone.”

Before Heather and Christen can respond, one of the waterbenders breaks the circle and walks towards them. “Avatar Alex,” she says. “As far as we can tell, there’s still lightning in her system.”

“What does that mean?” Alex asks weakly.

“We aren’t sure,” the waterbender says. “We aren’t even sure how she’s alive. Lightning bending is fatal.”

“She redirected it,” HAO says. “We saw her.”

The woman shakes her head. “That isn’t possible. That’s a skill that only certain firebenders can possess. It’s been tested, thoroughly.”

“I know what I saw,” Heather growls, stubborn and sure like the earth she bends. “The lightning went in one hand and came out the other.”

The woman sighs. “I know Kelley is a talented bender, but—”

“Oh, were you one of her _masters_?” Alex spits out.

“I was,” she says. “I know her skills better than anyone, and she couldn’t have redirected that lightning.”

“You know her better than _anyone_?” Alex seethes, stepping forward only to have Christen and Heather pull her back. “ _I_ know her better than anyone. Heather knows her, Christen does. You banished her from the only place she had ever known when she was _fifteen_.”

“She needed to grow up—”

“She needed to grow up with a _home_ ,” Alex growls. “With her _family_. She was fifteen. She made a stupid mistake. She needed—community service, or whatever. She was just a kid.”

“She made it just fine, like we knew she would.”

“Does she look _fine_ to you?” Alex points to Kelley’s floating body. “She isn’t—” Alex breaks off, her words collapsing around a sob she can’t contain. “She isn’t _fine_.”

The waterbender seems speechless. Alex takes a gasping breath to try and calm herself down when there’s a soft groan from the pool of water.

Alex breaks out of the hold that Christen and Heather have on her and shoves her way past the healer. Kelley’s eyebrows are furrowed, little noises of discomfort coming from the back of her throat. The water around her is still glowing, but Alex doesn’t care. She steps in, ignoring the words of protest, the two black and white fish scattering out of her way. 

She cradles Kelley’s head in her lap, not caring one bit about getting absolutely drenched. “Hey,” she says, brushing a few strands of wet hair back from Kelley’s forehead. “Hey there.”

Kelley’s eyes blink open, slowly. “Alex?” she whispers.

“Hi,” Alex says, blinking away tears, laughing a bit even though nothing funny has happened. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Kelley echoes, licking her lips and wincing.

Alex bends down a presses a kiss to her forehead, right between her eyebrows. After a moment of hesitation, she moves farther down and ghosts her lips across Kelley’s, so, so carefully.

“Master Iluq,” Kelley says when Alex pulls back, her voice weak.

“Yes, Kelley?”

“You aren’t going to banish Alex for making out with me here, right?”

Alex lets out a watery laugh, feeling the piece of her that’s been missing slot back into place as a slow smile stretches itself across Kelley’s face.

//

Christen is absolutely sure that she isn’t allowed to be here, where ever here is, and that Heather isn’t either, but they don’t say anything.

It’s got a strong connection to the Spirits, though, because she can feel the energy humming around them. It’s warm, even though they’re in the middle of the North Pole, and they’re grass growing around the pool of water.

Christen and HAO had just followed Alex as she had scooped up Kelley and taken off, still in the Avatar State. They had followed her and a group of old waterbenders had followed them. Alex had placed Kelley in the pool of water and started healing, her eyes still glowing. The waterbenders had joined in and Heather and Christen just stood back, cheeks wet, feeling helpless.

She wants to run into the spirit pool, too, wants to join Alex and Kelley, but sometimes the Avatar can get away with things that no one else can, so she hands back. She hangs back and watches and holds HAO’s hand in a desperate attempt to keep herself from breaking down into sobs.

_Kelley’s gonna be okay._

//

Kelley sleeps and sleeps and sleeps some more.

Alex gets to meet her family, who all shake her hand enthusiastically and ask a lot of questions. Mostly, they want to know why Kelley agreed to train her in the first place, but Alex doesn’t actually know the answer to that, so she just shrugs and smiles.

She likes the North. She never thought she would, but she does. It’s cold as fuck, and literally everyone wears blue, but she loves it. People make eye contact and smile and it seems like everyone knows everyone else, even though that can’t be possible with such a huge city.

It’s very different from the Fire Nation. Alex thinks she might like it better.

Kelley sleeps and sleeps and doesn’t wake up. Alex spends all of her time at Kelley’s bedside, holding hands that are covered in bandages.

People come and go, healers and Christen and HAO and Kelley’s family members and people Alex doesn’t know. Kelley still doesn’t wake up.

Alex thinks of her fluttering eyelids in the spirit pool, the way she had smiled into the gentle kiss that Alex couldn’t resist giving away, and wonders if maybe that was the last time Kelley would ever wake up.

Alex waits. When they’re alone, she talks. They aren’t sure if Kelley can hear them or not, but on the off chance she can, Alex talks and talks and talks. She talks about the North Pole and everything she likes about it, and she talks about Kelley’s siblings and she talks about how much she’s “missed you, Kelley, you dumbass,” and she talks about how she’s glad she isn’t going to go back to North Chung-Ling ever again, she thinks. She talks and holds Kelley’s hand and when she’s really sure they’re alone, she’ll let herself stroke a hand over Kelley’s hair.

“I searched for you,” she says, late one night, when the only lights are the ones that bleed in from the hallway and cast shadows across Kelley’s face.

“I searched for you,” she repeats. “I looked all over, Kelley, I swear.” Alex’s lip starts to tremble and she bites down on it. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

Alex lets her head flop down until it’s resting on the edge of Kelley’s bed.

“I thought you hated _baby_ , honeybun,” a weak voice says.

Alex’s head snaps up. Kelley’s eyes are still closed, but there’s a tiny smile on her face. “Kelley,” she breathes. 

Kelley’s eyes blearily blink open, squinting even though it’s dark. “Where am I?”

“Yue Memorial Hospital,” Alex says, reaching out and brushing some hair out of Kelley’s face. “You’ve been out for a while.”

“I’m at the Northern Water Tribe?” Kelley moves her head to try and look out the window and groans. “Ouch.”

“Take it easy,” Alex says. “You’re still healing.” A tear slips down Kelley’s cheek. “Kell, are you okay? What hurts? Let me call a nurse—”

“No,” Kelley says, her voice shaking. “It’s just...it’s even more beautiful than I remember.”

Alex follows her gaze to the window, where the palace is all lit up in the distance. She smiles. “When you save the Avatar’s life they give you the room with the good view, I guess.”

Kelley turns away from the window, looking confused. “I saved your life?” 

Alex reaches out and wipes the tears off of Kelley’s cheeks. “How much do you remember?” she asks softly.

“I, um—” Kelley frowns and closes her eyes. “My family came down to Republic City for the solstice, right?” 

Alex bites her lip. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, they did.”

//

Kelley wakes up disoriented every once and awhile, and when the first thing she sees are Alex’s eyes she tenses and shudders. She can’t remember what happened yet, not exactly. The healers are still working on her arms, but they stay that there’ll be scarring they can’t do anything about. In one of her moments of clarity, Kelley jokes that at least chicks will think it’s hot. Her mom reaches out and smacks Kelley on the forehead.

Kelley grins, looking absolutely content.

Alex spends a lot of her time by Kelley’s side, running her hand through her hair and reading her articles from their favorite Pro-bending website. Kelley has bad days, sometimes, where she’ll stare ahead with a slack face and won’t respond to anything. The healers won’t let Alex in those days, and she spends her time pacing in the hallway outside. Eventually, slowly, the bad days happen less and less frequently, and the good days start to happen more and more often.

Alex and Kelley are in the middle of a probably too heated card game when there’s a timid knock on the door. Kelley stays focused on Alex’s face, trying to call her bluff, but Alex glances towards the door.

There’s a girl there, about their age, dressed in some kind of blue outfit. They all look the same to Alex, really, although she’s gotten better at identifying healer shades of blue. It’s not Niyuk, who comes in with her wife Tekka every once and awhile, so Alex just stares until the mystery girl says, “Uh, hey?”

Alex looks back at Kelley, whose face has closed off in the way it used to when people asked about her family. Alex reaches forward and grabs onto one of Kelley’s hands, careful to be gentle.

“Um, can I come in?” The girl asks.

“Please go,” Kelley says.

“Kelley—”

“Please leave,” Kelley says, louder this time, finally looking over. Her voice is shaky, but Alex can’t tell if it’s from sadness or fury.

“I’m sorry, Kelley,” she says, not looking like she’s going anywhere.

Alex stands up, blocking Kelley’s view. “She asked you to leave,” she growls. When the girl still doesn’t move, Alex takes a step forward, a little blue flame bursting into life in her palm. The girl takes a startled step back and Alex uses her airbending to slam the door shut.

Kelley lets out a long, slow breath and leans back against the pillows.

“Who’s that?” Alex asks.

“That’s Tobin,” Kelley answers.

“...Tobin,” Alex says slowly, trying to place the name.

“She’s the one who saw me taking Niyuk to the Spirit Oasis and told the Elders.”

“Oh,” Alex says, her voice low. She walks towards the door.

“Stop, Al,” Kelley insists. “Just let her go.”

“She got you banished, Kelley,” Alex says, furious.

“No, she didn’t.” Kelley rolls her eyes. “I don’t want to talk to her right now, but it wasn’t her fault. She thought I’d just get marked down a masters level, or something.”

“She should’ve thought about it, through.”

“Maybe, but she didn’t. I was violating one of the most sacred rules of our culture, almost anyone would’ve done the same.” When Alex stays standing, Kelley says, “c’mon, Al, finish the card game with me. Please?”

Alex sighs and walks back over. “I’m not going to let you win just because you’re in the hospital, you know.”

Kelley grins. “Oh, I know.”

//

Kelley has a bad day. The healers won’t let Alex in the room, so she sits outside. 

Master Iluq shows up around noon, walking with slow but determined steps. “Avatar Alex,” he says. “Would you follow me, please? The Elders would like to speak with you.”

Alex really doesn’t want to leave, but she doubts the healers will let her see Kelley at all today, so she gets up and follows him. They don’t speak on the walk through the city, and Alex only offers a tense smile when he bends open the giant door of ice for her.

He leads her into a giant room with a huge, circular table, with an empty space in the middle. It’s freezing, like almost everywhere, but Alex breathes out a little fire and warms herself up. Master Iluq sits in the only chair left and gestures for Alex to move to the middle.

She walks forward slowly. She’s wary of the Elders, of the way they had thrown a fifteen year-old out by herself. She stops in the middle of the circle, not sure which way to face, feeling completely surrounded. Kelley had tried explaining the role of the council to her once before, a long time ago, but Alex can’t remember much. They aren’t the chief, but they’re still important somehow. Alex has the sinking feeling that she’s going to stick her foot in her mouth.

She tries to image Kelley standing here, fifteen years old and so confident, so sure of herself. She almost can.

“We understand that you are close with Master Kelley,” Master Anyu says, snapping her out of her thoughts.

It’s kind of odd to hear her referred to as _Master Kelley_ , but Alex nods. “We’re friends,” she says. “She’s been teaching me waterbending and we played together on the Lion Turtles for a few seasons.”

“Ah,” he says. “Pro-bending.”

Alex bristles at his tone. “Yeah, Pro-bending.”

Anyu purses his lips but decides to move on. “We would like you to share what you recall from the incident earlier this month.”

Alex clears her throat and shifts from one foot to the other. She goes through it as best she can remember, leaving out the flashes she’s still getting in her sleep, the ones of her burning the hooded man alive, of watching him scream.

Yeah, Alex leaves that part out. She tells them the rest of it, though, and ignores their annoyed looks when she insists that Kelley redirected the lightning herself.

“Well, Avatar Alex,” Iluq says. “You’re free to go, as well as your friends Christen and Heather O’Reilly.”

“I wasn’t aware we weren’t allowed to leave before,” Alex says, frowning.

“Someone did attack the city,” Anyu says. “We just needed to make sure it wasn’t you three.”

“Wait.” Alex looks around, scans over the old, serious faces staring back at her. “What about Kelley?”

“Kelley will be prosecuted by the Committee for her crimes against the North Pole.”

//

Kelley wakes up feeling a lot better, her head clear and arms barely throbbing. Alex is sitting next to the bed, just like always, and Kelley smiles and watches her for a bit before reaching a hand out.

“Hey, Avatar Hothead,” she says. “What’s up?”

“Kelley,” Alex breathes, grabbing onto the outstretched hand. “We’ve got to go.”

Kelley blinks. “What?”

“We’ve got to get you out of here. Quicky.” Alex stands and goes to the door, anxiously peering down the hallway.

“What’s going on?”

“The Elders want you to stand trial for crimes against the North. Come on, do you think you can stand?”

“Alex, what?” Kelley asks again. “They want to try me in the Committee Court? What?”

“I don’t have time to explain,” Alex says.

“Is it because I violated the rules of my banishment?”

Alex bites her lip.

“Are you finally going to tell me what happened? Because no one else will either, and I’m really not in the shape to be going anywhere.”

Alex walks back over and plops down into the chair by Kelley’s bed. “I don’t know where to start,” she says.

“Maybe with why I’m standing trial before the Elders,” Kelley says. “ _Again_.”

Alex sighs. “You were kidnapped during the solstice,” she says. “We didn’t know where you were for months. Three weeks ago, you showed up here, attacking the city. You, um—I showed up, with Christen and HAO, we had been looking for you—and you bloodbended me. I went into the Avatar State. Someone, we think the person who took you, tried to shoot lightning at me, and you broke out of your... _trance_ , I guess, because you jumped in front of me and redirected it. That’s why your arms are, uh—” Alex gestures towards the bandages.

Kelley’s mouth opens, then closes. “I’m dreaming,” she says, her voice weak. “This is one of the weird dreams I’ve been having, right?”

Alex shakes her head.

“So, I saved your life?”

“In the most idiotic way possible, yeah,” Alex says, still furious.

“I’d do it again,” Kelley says absentmindedly, still reeling from the overload of information.

Alex feels like her heart stutters to a stop. “Shut up,” she says, her voice hard. “Don’t say that.”

“What? I would,” Kelley insists. “I’d do it a million times, Al.”

“Shut up,” Alex says, her hands shaking. She doesn’t know if it’s from shock or anger. “Shut up and never say that again, okay?”

“Hey,” Kelley says. “I’m not going to take it back, alright? You’re my—my best friend and I’d throw myself in front of that lightning bolt every single time. The world needs the Avatar.”

_I need my Alex_ , Kelley thinks. _I need you._

Alex frowns. “We need to get you out of here.”

Kelley shakes her head. “Alex—”

“No, Kelley, we’ve got to go,” she says, standing up again.

Kelley doesn’t know what to say to calm her down, but she sees the cup of water on the bedside table and figures icing Alex’s feet to the ground couldn’t hurt. She flicks her fingers and—

_“Kelley!”_

//

_“What’s going on?”_

_“Kuran, get Polaq, quickly.”_

_“What’s going on?”_

_“Someone get her out of here—”_

_“Avatar Alex, please step outside—”_

_“Not until someone tells me what’s going on.”_

_“We don’t know. Please step into the hall.”_

_“She’s crashing!”_

_“Shit, get the—”_

_“Kelley!”_

//

“You’ve gotta stop scaring us like that, bud.”

Kelley groans, blearily opening her eyes to find HAO sitting in the spot she’s used to seeing Alex occupy.

“Hey, take it easy,” she says when Kelley struggles to sit up. “You had a rough day.”

“Where’s—” Kelley clears her throat, her voice scratchy. “Where’s Alex?”

“She’s not allowed in the hospital right now,” HAO says. “She wasn’t, um…” she searches for the right word. “She wasn’t really _cooperating_ with the staff.”

“She was telling me about—” Kelley stumbles over the words, not quite wanting to say them aloud. 

“About what happened?” HAO asks.

Kelley nods, wincing when it makes her head throb. “And she wasn’t listening, so I tried icing her feet to the ground, but that’s when I stop remembering.”

Heather nods, reaching out and lightly grabbing one of Kelley’s hands. “You electrocuted yourself again.”

Kelley blinks, confused by HAO’s overly gentle voice. “Do they know how?”

HAO nods. “It’s the water,” she says softly.

“What about it?” Kelley asks, pulling her hand back. “You’re freaking me out, dude.”

“You can’t bend,” Heather says quickly, wincing once the words are all out. “They think it’s your water chakra and something to do with the lightning strike, but…” she shrugs. “The charge of the lightning spreads throughout water, and…,” she trails off again. “It’s a miracle they managed to save you for the second time.”

Kelley’s heart rate picks up, her stomach twisting into knots. “I can’t—” she gasps out. “I can’t bend? Ever?”

HAO shakes her head. 

Kelley’s lip trembles. “Please go,” she says, her voice cracking. “I need to be alone.”

Heather sighs. “Okay. Call if you need anything, alright?” When Kelley doesn’t respond, she says, “love you, dude,” and leaves, closing the door softly behind her.

Alone, Kelley lets herself sob.

//

“Master Kelley of the Northern Water Tribe?”

Kelley, sitting in a wheelchair, arms still bound from fingertips to biceps in bandages, nods. “That’s me,” she says.

“You have been accused of violating your terms of banishment, treason, destruction of private and public property, assault, attempted murder, murder, manslaughter, and bloodbending. How do you plead?”

Kelley looks over at Alex, who’s sitting right next to her, just like she promised. “Not guilty,” she says.

There’s an explosion of noise behind them, the press forgetting about the fact that they’re supposed to be silent in the trial room of the Committee.

Alex gulps. 

//

The trial drags on.

It’s not quite the same as they do things in the Fire Nation, or in the United Nations. There’s no jury, or judge. It’s the Committee of Elders, in their specialized court. They do things more like the rest of the world for little crimes, but one of this magnitude has press and protesters and apparently qualifies for the Committee.

Kelley’s defense, the fact that she was kidnapped and brainwashed in some way, isn’t a very strong one, since they don’t exactly have any proof. Kelley can’t remember where she was held, or who was holding her, or what their exact motivation was. Her savior the shaky video someone took of her jumping in front of Alex and taking the lightning herself, but that doesn’t undo everything else she did.

The Avatar can only do so much to sway public opinion.

“Okay, how about this,” Alex says, leaning back in the chair she’s claimed as her own as a healer works on Kelley’s arms. “We play up you losing your bending.”

It’s the first time Alex has said it so bluntly and Kelley stiffens. “Absolutely not,” she says, furious. “I’m not about to tell the world that I’m not only scarred, but useless, too.”

The healer sends Alex a look, warning her to keep from getting Kelley too riled up.

“You aren’t useless,” Alex tries to say.

“I am, Alex,” Kelley mumbles. “I can’t defend myself and I’m the Avatar’s—” she sighs. “The Avatar’s best friend, and that’s just asking for someone to try and kidnap me again.”

Alex bites her lip. “It might be the only way to keep you out of jail,” she says. “Christen and HAO and I are all out of ideas.”

The healer looks up. “I’m sorry, Avatar Alex,” he says, “but I’m afraid you’re going to have to go. Her heart rate is picking up.”

Alex doesn’t bother fighting him. Before leaving, she turns to Kelley and says, “think about it.” 

//

Things do not go as planned.

There’s a witness whose brother was in the army, who was killed by a boulder of ice flung over the wall. Kelley stares at the ground as they speak, tears welling up in her eyes but not falling. Every time she glances over at Alex she looks a little more desperate and a little more scared.

Alex leans over. “Kelley,” she whispers. “You’re not going to win this.”

Kelley doesn’t respond.

//

Kelley’s testimony helps, even though Alex, Christen, and HAO know that she’s lying.

“Have you ever bloodbended before?”

Kelley looks Master Iluq right in the eyes. “No,” she says, her voice steady.

“Were you aware that you possessed the ability to bloodbend?”

“No,” Kelley says again.

“Do you have any intention of ever using bloodbending again?”

“No.”

There’s a tense moment of silence before Iluq looks down at a few sheets of paper in front of him. Kelley glances over to Alex and manages not to smile at the subtle thumbs up thrown her way.

The testimony helps, but not nearly enough. The defense of brainwashing is still a painfully weak one, and one that a lot of people just flat out don’t believe it. The Elders straddle the line of not wanting to anger the Avatar and not wanting to anger their own citizens.

“Kelley,” Alex mumbles into her ear. “You’re going to go to jail.”

“I’d like to see them try to take me to jail,” Kelley says at full volume, like she doesn’t know that there’s at least seven reporters in the row behind her.

Alex knows that Kelley’s terrified. Alex knows that she’d do anything to seem less terrified, to seem like she’s just as powerful as she was before. Alex knows that Kelley might not forgive her for what she does next, but it might just be the only thing that will save her.

“You’d like to see them try?” She repeats, full volume. “You lost your bending, Kelley, you can’t do _anything_.”

Kelley’s head snaps around, eyes wide with fury and something that looks a lot like betrayal. Behind them, cameras flash and reporters start scribbling and asking questions.

Alex looks ahead and even though she knows that she did the right thing, that she did what she had to, she thinks she might throw up.

//

Once everyone knows that Kelley’s bending is gone, that if she so much as flicks around a drop of water she would probably die, the public opinion shifts. The North isn’t as conservative as it used to be, but waterbending is still the mark of the brave, the chosen, the beloved. Christen talks to the press and gives the heart-wrenching story of a girl banished from her own home at fifteen, and an awful person who took advantage of the story to brainwash Kelley so they could get away with attacking the noble city of the North. She’s careful to add in the part about Kelley paying to repair all the damages out of her own pocket.

The people of the Northern Water Tribe eat it up.

Kelley doesn’t speak as she’s found not guilty. Not to the Committee, not to the press, and certainly not to Alex.

Alex watches a healer wheel Kelley onto the boat waiting in the canal outside and bend her towards the hospital. She has a feeling that she won’t be allowed into Kelley’s room anymore.

Instead, Alex turns around and walks back into courtroom. Iluq is still inside, along with Anyu and the rest of the Elders.

“Avatar Alex,” he says. “How can we help you?”

“Kelley’s banishment,” she says. “It’s long past time that she should be allowed to return home.”

Anyu frowns. “We have yet to see the appropriate level of maturity expected from a waterbender of her caliber.”

“She can’t even waterbend anymore,” Alex says. “And she saved my life. She sacrificed herself so that the Avatar could live.”

A few of the Elders glance at each other. Alex has thought about this for days. There’s nowhere that Kelley loves more than her home. She’ll stay here if she can. Alex wouldn’t be able to stay, since the North Pole is too far away from the rest of the world, too far away for an Avatar who needs to be ready whenever. But Kelley? Kelley would stay home.

“It’s time for her to come home,” Alex says. “Plus, the Avatar might forgive you for trying her best friend for murder. She’s a good ally to have. Think about it.”

//

Christen sighs. “Are you just going to avoid her forever?”

Kelley ignores her, focusing instead on putting one foot in front of the other, gripping the handrails on either side so hard her knuckles are stark white.

“Kell,” Christen says. “Come on. She was trying to help.”

“I said no,” Kelley grunts out, taking another step forward. “I told her not to and she did it anyway. Just because she’s the Avatar doesn’t mean she’s always right.”

“Well, you aren’t in jail,” HAO adds, face red from the push-ups she’s been doing. “So, she was kind of right.”

Kelley reaches the end of the bar and plops down into the wheelchair that’s waiting for her. “Whose side are you on?”

“Neither,” Heather says, rolling over and starting on sit-ups. “I just hate it when you fight. You’re both so stubborn.”

“She knew what she was doing,” Kelley mutters, tugging at her sleeves so that they cover more of her hands. “Now she’s got to face the consequences.”

HAO glances over at Christen, who shrugs. At least they tried.

//

Kelley’s room is just like she remembers it. Her Pro-bending posters from ten years ago are still up, the walls a light blue. It’s cleaner than it ever was when she lived there, her books on the bookshelf, papers on the desk all lined up. Her bed is made, still with the same sheets and comforter. 

She looks at herself in the mirror on the back of her door and tries to see herself at fifteen, all swagger and raw talent, without a care in the world. She can’t.

Instead, she sees someone pale and skinny, with split ends and bony elbows. The bandages on her arms are finally gone, but Kelley can’t stand looking at the scars, the lightning-like tendrils of harsh red that make their way up one arm and down the other. Instead, she’s taken to wearing dark blue sleeves that bunch around her biceps and leave just her fingers exposed.

She looks different. She looks older. A lot can happen in seven years, she guesses.

A knock on the door breaks her out of her thoughts. “One sec,” she says, running a hand through her hair and practicing a wide grin in the mirror. She swings open the door. “Oh.”

Alex smiles timidly. “Hey.”

Kelley glares, not stepping aside to let Alex in the room. “What do you want?”

Alex gulps. “To apologize,” she says. “I’m sorry that I ignored what you wanted and assumed that I knew best. It was selfish of me.” She waits, but Kelley doesn’t say anything. “Can I come in?”

Kelley sighs and steps aside. She waits until Alex is in her room and the door is closed before she speaks. “You don’t get it, Alex,” she says, shaking her head. “You’ve got all four elements, alright? If you lost just one, whatever, but...waterbending is who I am.” She pauses and rubs a hand across her face. “Who I was.”

“You’re more than that, Kelley.”

“I’m really not,” she insists, glaring. “It’s kind of the only thing I’ve ever done. It’s all I was ever going to be. I’m worthless without it.”

“The girl I love is _not_ worthless,” Alex spits out.

Kelley’s face goes slack. “What?” she breathes.

Alex gulps. “Um—”

Kelley lunges forward and kisses her, hard and messy. Alex stumbles back a step and wraps her arms around Kelley’s waist, pulling her in until their hips knock together. Kelley’s mouth is hot and distracting, so much so that Alex misses the words that get mumbled against her lips.

She pulls back and tries to breathe normally as Kelley slides her mouth down to her neck. “What?”

Kelley pauses, her mouth still against Alex’s racing pulse. Her lips drag up to Alex’s ear. “I love you too,” she whispers.

Alex holds Kelley’s face in her hands. Her pupils are blown wide and her eyes look like they’re sparkling, the smallest smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. 

She leans in and kisses Kelley slowly, devastatingly soft, until there are hands fisting in the back of her shirt.

_I’m sorry_ , it says. _I missed you. I’ve missed you and I love you and I’m so glad you’re safe._

//

“The Elders want to see you.”

“Again?” Kelley pulls away from where she’s been resting, her face in Alex’s neck. She wiggles around until she’s hovering over Alex, almost falling off the bed in the process.

“You need a bigger bed,” Alex says, smirking. “I’m surprised fifteen year-old you could make out with girls here.”

“Oh, I never brought them back _here_ ,” Kelley says, leaning in until her breath ghosts along Alex’s cheek. “I had a few make out spots in the city.”

“Is that so?” Alex asks, reaching up with one hand and running her fingers through Kelley’s hair, longer than both of them are used to. “Maybe you can show me some time.”

“Maybe,” Kelley whispers right before their lips meet.

//

“So, I’m _not_ unbanished?”

Anyu sighs. “We’d like to spend a bit more time reviewing your case. You’re free to remain in the North for the next few days, until we reach a conclusion.”

Kelley rolls her eyes. “Of course.”

Iluq stands. “It would be wise to show us some respect.”

“Why?” Kelley can’t resist asking. She thinks it might have to do with the hours she’s spent curled up next to Alex, feeling strangely invincible, like she could do no wrong. “You’ve never shown me any.”

“You have never earned our respect, _Master_ Kelley.”

Kelley can feel herself get angry like a teapot that’s boiling over. “How was I supposed to earn it? I was fifteen and you kicked me out into the snow with _nothing_.”

“It was to _teach_ you respect.”

“It was cruel,” Kelley spits out.

Iluq shakes his head. “You’ve learned nothing, then.”

“I’ve learned _everything_.” Kelley’s voice shakes. “And I’ve had to do it all on my own.”

“It seems the Avatar was wrong about you.”

“The Avatar?” Kelley says, her anger momentarily eclipsed by confusion. “What does Alex have to do with this?”

“She was the one who convinced us to take a look at your case,” Anyu says. “Sacrificing yourself for the Avatar shows a certain level of maturity and responsibility that we’ve been waiting to see.”

“I didn’t do it for _you_ ,” Kelley says indignantly. “I did it because I had to, because someone needed to. It wasn’t about your bullshit ideals of respect and maturity.” When all she’s faced with are the stoney expressions of people whose opinions once mattered so much to her, Kelley scoffs. “Good luck reaching your decision.”

She slams the door on the way out.

//

Once they seem them interacting in a place that’s not a hospital, it takes Kelley’s family under five minutes to figure out that Kelley and Alex aren’t just friends. After that, there’s a lot of teasing, a kind of fun, happy teasing that leaves Kelley’s cheeks pink and Alex feeling only a little uncomfortable.

Kelley’s family is so drastically different from her own. Alex can’t remember the last time she laughed with her siblings about something, much less her parents. It’s nice to watch Kelley laugh so hard, though, to watch her spend the whole evening smiling, even when her siblings tease her about ending up with a girl from the _Fire_ Nation.

Alex pretends to be offended, but she gets it. If someone had told her that she would fall in love with someone from the Northern Water Tribe when she was fifteen, she would’ve laughed too, so she can understand why Kelley’s family thinks it’s so funny.

Kelley’s hand never leaves her thigh, not once all evening. Alex takes to resting one hand on the back of Kelley’s chair.

Alex likes staying with Kelley’s family.

//

Alex taps her foot anxiously as she waits outside. The Elders wanted to see Kelley alone.

She hates waiting. She really, really, _really_ hates waiting. It feels like she’s been there for hours when Kelley finally emerges, walking slowly with wide eyes.

“So?”

Kelley turns towards her sharply, like she forgot Alex was outside. “I’m free to stay,” she says, sounding entirely spaced out.

Alex’s heart sinks, but she grins anyway. “You can stay?”

Kelley nods, still looking off into the distance as Alex wraps her up in a hug. 

“I can stay,” she mumbles into Alex’s shoulder. “I can’t believe it. I _cursed_ in front of them and they’re letting me stay.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Alex whispers.

“I need to—” Kelley steps back. “Oh my spirits, I need to go tell mom and dad and—” she turns and takes a few steps before turning back and grabbing Alex’s hand. “Come _on_ , I have to tell my parents!”

Alex grins and grips Kelley’s hand tight, running in step with her the whole way home, even though her stomach feels like a rock.

//

“Don’t look up yet.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “For the last time, I won’t.”

Kelley turns around and grins sheepishly. “Sorry. I just want you to have the best view.”

“I’ve already got it,” Alex says, smirking.

“ _Oh_ ,” Kelley croons. “What a _line_.”

Alex laughs, not bothering to say that it was kind of a line but that she meant it anyway.

“Okay,” Kelley says, stopping so suddenly that Alex runs into her back. “We’re here.”

“Can I look up now?”

“One sec,” Kelley says, grabbing Alex’s arms and wrapping them around her waist. She leans back into Alex’s chest and laces their gloved fingers together over her stomach. “Alright, now you can look.”

Alex presses a kiss to Kelley’s temple before looking up at the night sky. Her breath catches in her throat. “Holy shit.”

Kelley hums. “Beautiful, right?”

“There are so many of them.”

“You can see more if you get farther outside the city, but it’s still better than down south, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex breathes out, still trying to take it all in. “I never thought the stars could look this good.”

“It’s what I missed most, I think,” Kelley muses, leaning a bit more of her weight against Alex’s chest.

“You don’t have to miss it anymore,” Alex says, looking down at her. “You’ve just gotta look up.”

Kelley’s smile is almost as dazzling as the stars above them. She turns in Alex’s arms and gasps a bit as Alex’s hands wander down below her waist. “Want to know a secret?” She whispers.

“Sure,” Alex says, pulling Kelley in even closer. She thinks she knows what the secret is, but Kelley looks excited to say it, so she stays quiet.

“This was one of my make out spots back in the day.”

Alex smirks. She _had_ known the secret. “Is that so,” she says, leaning in just a little more, letting her breath ghost along Kelley’s mouth. “That’s interesting.”

Kelley shivers a little bit, but Alex doesn’t think it’s from the cold. Just in case, she lets her fire creep up her throat and heat up the inside of her mouth so that the kiss she presses to Kelley’s lips is as warm as it is soft.

//

Alex dodges calls from the White Lotus like they’re attacks in the Pro-bending ring. She’s been up north far too long, and it’s only a matter of time before they come knocking at Kelley’s family’s door, but she wants to stay away from the responsibility for a while.

Alex has a new responsibility, one that seems infinitely more important than hours and hours of training. It’s keeping the smile on Kelley’s face.

If Alex isn’t careful, if she stops focusing, Kelley gets gloomy and broody. She won’t _say_ that she’s thinking about losing her bending, but Alex knows that’s what’s on her mind.

Kelley’s family knows it, too, but they aren’t nearly as good at cheering her up. They love her desperately—Alex can tell that after a few weeks, even though it’s so different from her own family—but they don’t know her all that well. They know the fifteen year-old Kelley inside and out, but the older one, the one who would jump in front of a bolt of lightning without a second thought? They don’t know _that_ Kelley at all.

They’re learning fast, but Alex has a head start. Heather’s the best at it, though, and she makes Kelley take her to all the dive bars, the ones that she can go to legally now, without bribing the bartender. Christen and Alex wait until they’re gone before working on airbending, and HAO steals Alex away when Kelley’s out with Christen or family.

It’s messy, but they make it work. Alex is hopeful that Kelley will heal, that she’ll start to get over it, but as more time goes by, the more obvious it seems that Kelley’s just faking a smile for them.

Alex might’ve been fooled by Kelley’s wide smile and loud laughter if she wasn’t woken up every night by Kelley’s nightmares. Every night, she jolts away, startling Alex out of sleep as well. She always looks around for a moment, panicked, before turning into Alex’s chest and starting to cry.

Alex just holds her and strokes her hair. Kelley never wants to talk about it, but Alex knows that she dreams about bending, only to wake up and remember that she doesn’t have it anymore.

Alex doesn’t mention her own dreams, the ones about Kelley in the snow, twitching and crackling with electricity before falling absolutely still, limp and lifeless. She doesn’t mention the ones she has about burning someone alive, either, about watching them scream and not even feeling sorry about it.

No, Alex doesn’t mention those. She just holds Kelley a little tighter and lets her own tears disappear into Kelley’s hair.

//

Christen spends her alone time at the library.

It’s far bigger than the library in Republic City, or the one at the Western Air Temple. It’s got thousands of years of Water Tribe customs and traditions, as well as rooms full of scrolls and books on the spirits and the Spirit World.

They’re supposed to have some good scrolls about chakras and their connection to bending, too, but Christen can’t seem to find them.

“Um, excuse me?”

The woman down the aisle looks up from her book. “Yo, what’s up?”

“Do you have any idea where I could find the section on bending and chakras?” Christen asks. She’s seen the woman in the section on the spirits nearly every day, so she figures she might know something about where everything is.

“Yeah it’s just down there,” she says, pointing. “Two from the back of the room, on the left.”

“Thanks so much,” Christen says, walking past her.

“My name’s Tobin,” the woman says. “If you need anything else.”

“Oh,” Christen says, surprised. People are friendlier in the Northern Water Tribe than she’s used to. “I”m Christen.”

“Right,” Tobin says. “You’re one of Kelley’s friends.”

“Do you know her?”

Tobin smiles. “I, uh, used to.” She puts her book back on the shelf. “Let me see if I can help you find what you’re looking for.”

//

Kelley tries and fails to meditate.

She wishes she was better at it, because some peace of mind is exactly what she wants. She’s happy to be home, to be with family, but she’s also heartbroken. The piece of her that was missing was finally put back right as another piece got ripped away.

She’s all healed up, physically, but mentally she’s healing without any assistance, and it’s slow and painful. There’s nothing the healers can do, either. They’ve already done all they can, leaving Kelley with lightning scars up her arms and in her soul.

Kelley tries and tries to meditate, but it just hurts too much.

//

Heather misses dirt.

She never thought she’d say that, but she sure as hell misses _dirt_. She misses dirt and rocks and clay and she misses working out with them. The closest she’s gotten in a _month_ is some potting soil from a window box, and that was barely satisfying at all.

_Fuck_ , she misses bending. She can only imagine what Kelley’s feeling.

Because, the thing is, Heather was there when Kelley only had a run down apartment and a brand new Pro-bending contract. She was there when Kelley thought no one would see her cry because she missed her parents so much, and she was there when Kelley rebuilt herself from nothing.

She watched as Kelley rebuilt herself on her bending. She followed as Kelley made a new life for herself, one entirely dependent on her ability to move some water around without touching it.

She’s gonna be there as Kelley builds her new life, but she’s not an idiot. She knows it isn’t going to be sunshine and rainbows. The last time certainly wasn’t, and this time won’t be any different.

//

“Hey, Alex,” Christen says, dropping from the sky and falling into step with her. “I found something at the library.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Chris, I don’t—”

“No, this is actually important,” she insists. “I think I found a way for Kelley to get her bending back.”

Alex trips over her own feet and Christen blasts her back up with a jolt of cold air. “Keep talking,” Alex says, turning around and walking back towards Kelley’s house.

//

Alex doesn’t think that Christen stops for breath once the entire time she’s telling Kelley about what she found.

“You don’t have to, of course,” Alex interjects once Christen is finished. “I know you probably want to spend some time at home.”

“Whoa, what?” Kelley looks at Alex incredulously. “What am I going to do here, build snowmen? Of course I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” Christen says softly.

“I’ve got to head into the Spirit World because the White Lotus are on my ass about it, but you really don’t have to go if you don’t want to, Kell.”

Kelley crosses her arms. “Do you not want me to come?”

“What?” Alex scoffs. “Of course I want you to come.” 

“Then quit trying to convince me to stay.” Her voice softens as she says, “I’ll follow you anywhere, Alex.”

Christen clears her throat. “That’s my cue,” she says, booking it out of the room. “Use protection,” she calls out as she slams the door shut behind her.

Alex ignores her and goes over to straddle Kelley’s lap where she’s sitting on the bed. “That was a line,” she says, leaning in to kiss her anyway.

“It seems like it’s working, though,” Kelley mumbles against Alex’s insistent mouth.

Alex hums, unfocused on what Kelley’s saying. Instead, she lets one hand twist into Kelley’s hair, pulling her head so it’s at the perfect angle for Alex to lick down into her mouth. It gets the desired result—that little groany noise from the back of Kelley’s throat and two hands grabbing the small of her back. That’s when Alex lets her fingers play along the elastic of the sleeves Kelley’s taken to wearing, the ones that cover the scars on her arms.

The minute her fingers start to tug it down, though, Kelley snaps her head back. “Alex,” she warns, suddenly serious. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s panting, but she doesn’t look happy.

“Kell, come on,” Alex says. “You sleep in them. They’re just scars.”

Kelley flops back on the bed and covers her face with her hands. “I hate looking at them,” she says. “It just reminds me that I can’t bend anymore.”

Alex slips her thumbs under Kelley’s shirt and rubs soothing circles into her hipbones. “And looking at the sleeves is better?”

Kelley lets her hands flop to the bed and stares up at the ceiling. “Yes.” She sighs. “No? I don’t know.”

“You aren’t embarrassed about your other scar,” Alex says, gesturing to her eye.

Kelley rolls her eyes. “ _That_ scar’s there because Master Anyu’s an asshole.” She scratches at her arms. “These scars are different.”

“They’re a reminder of your bravery.” Alex leans forward and braces herself above Kelley on one elbow, forcing eye contact. 

Kelley raises an eyebrow.

“It was _stupid_ ,” Alex says, “but it was brave. You aren’t allowed to do anything like it ever again, but it was still brave.”

That teases a smile out of Kelley. “It’s easy to be brave around you,” she whispers. 

Alex lets herself get kissed softly once, twice, before pulling back. “Let me see?” she asks. When Kelley still doesn’t move, Alex pulls out the big guns. “Please, baby?”

Calling her baby is almost always effective, and sure enough, Kelley sighs in resignation before wiggling around under Alex, slowly tugging off the navy blue sleeves. She squeezes her eyes shut once they’re off, hands fisting the front of Alex’s shirt.

Alex leans down and presses her forehead against Kelley’s. “See?” She kisses the corner of Kelley’s mouth. “Not so bad, right?”

Kelley breathes out shakily and slowly uncurls her fingers from Alex’s shirt. Alex pulls her head back and looks over and takes in the forks of lightning that mar Kelley’s arms, still red and irritated looking even though the healers insist they’re healed.

“Do they hurt?”

Kelley shakes her head. “The healers say the redness should fade.”

Alex takes one of Kelley’s hands and pulls it up to her face so she can see the way the scars go all the way to her fingertips up close. Alex presses a gentle kiss to her palm.

“If you say they look beautiful I’m kicking you out of my room.”

Alex laughs, the sound loud and harsh after the near silence that had overtaken them. “I don’t know,” she says, still smiling. “Didn’t you say the chicks would dig them?”

Kelley shoves her and doesn’t offer help as Alex flails to stay on the bed.

//

They enter the Spirit World through the North Pole. Alex is wearing so many layers she has to waddle, but when they cross through the portal it’s suddenly a lovely room temperature and she starts to overheat.

“Told you so,” Christen mumbles.

“Fuck off,” Alex shoots back, struggling to pull off a sweater. Kelley laughs and helps her, smothering her smile when Alex’s face, flushed and annoyed, is revealed once again. Kelley smacks a kiss to her cheek.

Alex is glad her face is already red.

“Alright,” HAO says. “Let’s get this party started. Where to first, Avatar Alex?”

Alex looks across to the other portal, the one that will let them out at the South Pole. “Uh, not there,” she says, turning towards what looks like a forest. “There?”

Heather laughs. “Sorry, I forgot. Christen, where to?”

Alex huffs, but Kelley laughs, and it’s hard to be upset when that happens. 

Christen shrugs. “People have tried to map the Spirit World, but no one’s really been successful. It has a habit of presenting what it wants to you.”

“So, we’re wandering aimlessly?”

“We can wander with purpose,” Kelley says, stuffing one of Alex’s sweaters into her bag. “C’mon.” She reaches out and grabs Alex’s hands, arms still covered in those stupid sleeves. 

“Let’s get exploring.”

..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i straight up steal dialogue from the zuko/ozai confrontation?? perhaps. we love a good zuko parallel .


End file.
